“Thankye, sir; I am, arn’t I? But at a time like this, when you’ve got pyson sarpents crawling about over your head, and what’s worse, the sort o’ feeling comes over you that you’re in a place where as we know, sir, no end of them poor niggers as was torn away from their homes has come to a bad end, I’m that sooperstitious, as you call it, that I don’t know which end of me’s up’ards and which down. I don’t like it, Mr Murray, sir, and you may laugh at me, sir, but I’m sure as sure that there’s something wrong—some one dead, I believe, and pretty close to us too.”
“Not that Mr Allen, Tom?” said Murray, starting, and in spite of his fair share of common sense, lowering his voice, as for the moment he seemed to share the sailor’s fancies.
“Him, sir?” whispered the man. “Like as not, sir. He looked bad enough to be on his way for the locker.”
“Yes,” agreed Murray; “he looked bad enough. But pooh! Nonsense!”
“Pooh! Nonsense it is, sir. But mightn’t it be as well to go in and see how he is, sir, and ask him ’bout where the black servants is?”
“Wake the poor fellow up from a comfortable sleep just because you have taken a silly notion into your head, Tom? Why, you are going to make me as fanciful as you are yourself!”
“Yes, sir, I wish you was,” said the man. “I should feel a deal better then.”
“But I don’t know, Tom,” said Murray suddenly. “I don’t want to disturb him; still, as he told me to do just as I pleased here, and when I wanted anything to ring for the servants—”
“Yes, sir, and they don’t obey orders, sir, as they should; it’s like doing him a good turn, sir, to let him know that his crew’s a bit mutinous, being on’y slaves, you know, and like us, sir, agen him.”
“Come with me, Tom,” said the lad, yielding to a sudden resolve. “I will just wake him and ask a question or two.”