The big sailor laughed.
“When I was a youngster, sir, we boys used to get out in one of the Newlyn boats, sir—in Mount’s Bay, sir, and trail a line behind to get a few mack’rel, sir, for our mothers. Well, sir, it was easy enough to trail the line and hook, but it warn’t so easy always to get the bait; for we used to think the best bait was a lask.”
“A what, Tom?”
“Lask, sir, and that’s a strip out of the narrowest part of a mackerel, cut with a sharp knife down to the bone, so that when the hook was put through one end one side was raw fish and the other was bright and silvery.”
“I see, Tom,” said Murray.
“Nay, sir, you only fancy you can see it. If you could see it twirling and wiggling in the water when it was dragged after the boat and we pulled fast, you’d see it looked just like a little live fish, and the mack’rel shoot theirselves after it through the water and hook theirselves. That’s the best bait for a mack’rel, and after the same fashion one nigger’s the best bait to catch more niggers.”
“Then you think we can get hold of more of the boat’s crew by—”
“Yes, sir,” said Tom, interrupting and grinning the while, “but without cutting a piece out of him with either a knife or a whip. Poor chaps, they get that often enough, I’ll be bound. You only want to let this one see that he won’t be hurt, and he’ll soon bring the others up.”
“But we’ve been so rough with him already. I’m afraid it will be a hard task.”
“Not it, sir. They get so knocked about that a good word or two soon puts matters right again. You try, sir.”