As he finished, with the towel now well damped, he made believe to throw the water over his audience, and as they bounded away, he hurled the contents over the side, put down the bucket under the bulwarks and turned to go back to the cabin, making the wet towel snap like a whip as he flicked at first one and then at another of the naked bodies so temptingly displayed, the blacks roaring with laughter as they leaped and bounded about to avoid the cuts; but far from showing any resentment against the boy, evidently treating it all as a magnificent piece of fun.
The boy left them chattering and laughing, Black Jack as merry as the rest, while the object of their mirth began to wonder at the power he seemed to have exercised over the pack of childlike savages, and to ask himself whether there was anything in these people to mind.
“But dogs will bite if they are set at any one by their master,” the boy said to himself in conclusion, and found himself face to face with the man of whom he had been thinking.
“Oh, there you are,” he said, sourly. “Go and help them with the rations, and then go and feed the black dogs.”
Carey nodded, and from some half-conceived and misty notion that he could not even analyse to himself, more than that it had something to do with trying to make himself as much master of the black fellows as the beachcomber seemed to be, he went about the work with alacrity, finding Bostock with his jacket off and sleeves rolled up, fast filling a basket with ship’s biscuit.
“I s’pose I shall have to boil up a lot of the men’s pork, Master Carey,” he said. “The black beggars must be satisfied with biscuit this morning.”
“I’ll take it to them, Bob,” said Carey. “I say, though, can you find a jar of molasses?”
“Ay, there’s plenty, my lad. Going to give ’em that?”
“Yes, look sharp.”
In another minute or so, the jar was brought out of the store, and Carey provided himself with a big iron cooking spoon, and thus armed and with basket and jar, he made his way towards the deck, to be met directly by the blacks, ready to chatter, grin, and dance about him, as he brusquely walked right through them till well forward, where he seated himself on a ship’s fender and set the basket and jar before him.