“Oh, it’s sinse, sor; and I shall droop, too, wid all my moight!”
“No, no,” said Humphrey, as he pondered upon the past, and saw in Dinny’s reprieve a desire to gratify him. “No, my lad. I appealed to the captain to spare your life, and this is the result.”
“Did ye, now, sor! Sure, an’ I thought that the pretty little darlin’ had been down on her knees to him; and, knowing what a timpting little beauty she is, it made me shiver till I began to consider what sort of a man the captain is, and how, when the boys have been capturing the women, and sharing ’em out all round, the skipper niver wance took a fancy to a single sowl. Faix, and he’s always seemed to take to you, sor, more than to annyone else. Some men’s of a marrying sort, and some ar’n’t. The skipper’s one of the ar’n’ts.”
Humphrey looked at the man curiously, but it was evident that he had no hidden meaning.
“Sure, sor,” continued Dinny, “when I think about you two, it has always seemed to me as if the captain wanted to be David to your Jonathan, only the other way on, for the skipper isn’t a bit like King David.”
“Have you suffered much!”
“Suffered, sor!”
“I mean in prison.”
“Divil a bit, sor! I’ve lived like a foighting-cock. They always fade a man up well in this part of the counthry before they finish him off.”
“You may make your mind easy, Dinny,” said Humphrey, thoughtfully; “the captain will not take your life unless he takes mine too.”