“But your side won, then, and I’m a prisoner?”
“Nay; your side won, master.”
“How can that be?” cried Nic.
“’Cause it is. They was too many for uz. They come down like thunder on uz, and ’fore we knowed where we was we was tied up in twos and being marched away.”
“Our side won?” said Nic, in his confusion.
“That’s right, master. You zee, they told Humpy Dee and the rest to give in, and they wouldn’t; so the zailor officer wouldn’t stand no nonsense. His men begun with sticks; but, as our zide made a big fight of it, they whips out their cutlashes and used them. I got one chop, and you nearly had it, and when two or three more had had a taste of the sharp edge they begun to give in; and, as I telled you, next thing we was tied two and two and marched down to the river, pitched into the bottoms of two boats, and rowed aboard a ship as zet zail at once; and next night we was pitched down into the boats again and hoisted aboard this ship, as was lying off Plymouth waiting to start.”
“Waiting to sail?”
“That’s right, master! And I s’pose she went off at once, but I was too bad to know anything about it. When I could begin to understand I was lying here in this hammock, and the doctor telled me.”
“One moment. Where are the others?”
“All aboard, sir—that is, twenty-two with uz.”