“Oh, but you do, Mr Dean. I wish we had had time, all of us, to have got up there before the niggers came that night. We could have kept them back for a twelvemonth if we had only knowed.”
Poor Buck had joined the boys with the best intentions, but seeing the look of agony Dean directed at him he slackened his pace and let the pair go on without another word.
“Why, what’s the good of that?” said Dan, as the two men were alongside again. “You didn’t half talk to ’em.”
“Didn’t half talk to ’em, my lad? I talked a deal too much. Why, I no sooner opened my mouth than, as they said of the chap, I put my foot in it. Well, what’s it going to be?” continued the big fellow sadly—“regular heartbreaking work for those two poor young chaps? I can’t talk much about it, but I have thought a deal.”
“So have I, messmate.”
“Ah,” said Buck, “I’m afraid it’s all over with the poor old governor. Fine old English gentleman he was.”
“Ay,” said Dan, “and the poor doctor too. Talk about a man, Buck—they don’t build many craft like him. Thorough gentleman down to the ground, and all the same a regular working man too. If there’s anything he couldn’t do it’s because it arn’t been invented yet. My word, messmate, what a skipper he would have made! I should just like to have gone through life as his first mate.”
“Ah,” said Buck, “well, we shan’t be long before we know the worst. Look! Here they come, yelling and shouting and singing welcome home to our lot. Now, what’s it going to be next?”
“Ah, that’s what I want to know,” said Dan. “They arn’t cannyballs, or it would mean a big fire and a wholesale roast.”
“Haw, haw!” ejaculated the big fellow, in a dismal attempt at a laugh. “Why, they will be making you cook, Danny. Well, if they do, put me out of my misery first, and good luck to ’em! They will find me pretty tough. I know what I should like to do, Dan. I have been wishing that I was a nigger like our Mak. He is just like a heel. No matter what happens he’s always able to slip out of the way. But just now I don’t wish I was a nigger. I should just like to be one of them Malay kris chaps, get my arm set free, and then run amuck.”