“Ah, well!” said Dinny, reloading the piece; “that’ll do him good, and give the poor divils at the plantation a bit of a rest.”
He paused in the act of reloading, drew the charge with a dry look upon his countenance, and laid the musket down upon the deck.
“No, thank ye,” he said, shaking his head at the piece. “It’s a murdhering baste ye are, and ye’ll be getting some poor fellow into throuble wan of these days. Don’t you think so, Dick?”
The prisoner screwed up his countenance, and then relaxed it as he looked hard at Dinny.
“Well, it’s pretty nigh a hanging matter for you, Dinny,” he said.
“What! for an accident, man?”
“Accident! you’ve gone and committed a rank act of piracy! But, I say, what’ll they do with me?”
“Hang ye, I should say,” replied Dinny, with a droll look in his eye. “Hang ye as soon as they’ve got toime to think about ye; or no: maybe they’ll save themselves the throuble, and hand ye over to thim ruffians there.”
He pointed over the side, and the sailor gave a start and changed colour as he caught sight of the back-fins of a couple of huge sharks gliding along through the water a little way astern.
“Oh, they’re a bad lot with their prisoners, Dick. Look at me.”