“Yes, Mass’ Oakum,” said the black, flinching from a blow aimed at him as he spoke, when, to the poor fellow’s horror, Sam seized him by the scruff of the neck, pushed his head into an open barrel, and whispered:
“Don’t you make a sound, ’Pollo, old man. It’s all my larks. Don’t laugh, you lubber, but get your biggest carving knife, and hide here in the middle watch: there’s a game on, my lad, and I want you to help to retake the ship.”
“Oh, golly, Mass’ Oakum, sah, dat I will; I bress de lor’, sah, you not big rufiyun affer all. I bress de lor’.”
“Hush! hold your tongue, lad. Mum’s the word. Now then, you black nigger, look alive with that grub,” he said aloud. “I’m ’most starving.”
He came out puffing away at his pipe as the Cuban came slowly along the deck, looking suspiciously at Sam, who, however, did not seem to heed his look, but fixing himself on the bulwark, with his legs under him, and his arm round one of the shrouds, he half-shut his eyes, and smoked away as if with real enjoyment, blinking at the shore, and all the while ripening his plans for the fierce work to be undertaken that night.
Story 1--Chapter XXXV.
Prisoners.
Meanwhile, to Hester’s horror, she found that they were to be prisoners in Lauré’s cabin, and that the drunken scoundrel who shared it with him kept coming down blinking and leering at them, making their very blood run cold.