“Way enough—oars,” shouted the coxswain.
There was indeed way enough. The good fellow had not been keeping his weather eye lifting, and now the boat took the beach with such force that nearly all hands caught crabs, the bewitching Leila among the rest.
Peter made haste to help her up, and assisted her on shore. He even carried his politeness so far as to offer her his arm along the beach.
“You go ’long now,” she replied. “You nothing but one piccaninny. I not can gib dis heart ob mine to a child so small as you.”
Jill and I laughed, and Peter laughed good-naturedly, and fell back.
“Bother it all, boys, she’s got the best of me after all.”
Here, in James’s Town, as in other places, my brother and I attracted universal attention, among blacks and whites, by our wonderful resemblance to each other. And they did not hesitate to show it. For instance, I was some distance behind Jill and Peter, when I met a bluff old sailor.
“Hullo! matie,” he shouted, “blessed if I ain’t three sheets in the wind. I could have sworn I met you a minute ago, and there you are again. I’ll go back and have a sleep. Can’t go on board like this.”
But when he saw the two of us together, he concluded to go on board, after treating himself to another glass of beer, and drinking our healths. So we had to “shout” as Peter called it.
Before we entered the little inn, which was kept by a highly respectable man of colour, Peter pushed me unceremoniously into a little stable place, and told me to wait till come for.