“Yes, your honour, the black niggers, sir. ‘Let ’em bide,’ I says; ‘what’s the good o’ teasing ’em? You’ll only make ’em want to bite.’ But they wouldn’t take no notice o’ what I said, sir, and kep’ it up till the poor chaps turned savage like, and it was hooroar, and all the fat in the fire.”
“Stop, sir!” cried the captain, sternly. “Speak plain English, sir.”
“Yes, sir; that’s what I’m a-trying to do, sir.”
“You say that the men were teasing and baiting the two black hands, and you advised them not to?”
“Well, your honour, it was hardly adwice, because I said I’d shove my fist in someone’s eye if he didn’t let the poor beggars bide.”
Mr Staples uttered a curious sound, and the captain coughed.
“Ah, well, you tried to make them stop their cowardly, unmanly tricks.”
“That’s it, your honour.”
“Then now give me the names of the men who were guilty, and as each man’s name is called let him stand out three paces to the front. Go on.”
Joe Dance scratched his head, but did not speak.