"Aye, aye, sir," says Tom, jumping up. "She's ready at the starn. Shall we off and at 'em?"
"Right you are, Tom!" says I; "all hands to the gig here!"
Well, in less than three minutes I'd got that boat under way, and was rowing ahead between the Frenchmen and their sloop, with our Remingtons ready, and everything in order for a good stand-up fight of it.
When the Frenchmen saw we meant to intercept them, and found themselves cut off between the savages on one side and an English crew well-armed with rifles of precision on the other, they thought it was about time to open negotiations with the opposing party. So the skipper stopped, as airy as a gentleman walking down the Boulevards, and called out to me in French, "What do you want ahoy, there?"
"Ahoy there yourself," says I, in my very best Ollandorff. "We want to know what you're doing with those youngsters?"
"Oh! it's that, is it?" says the Frenchman, as cool as a cucumber, coming nearer a bit, and talking as though we'd merely stopped him with polite inquiries about the time of day or the price of spring chickens; while the savages, seeing from our manner we were friendly to their side, left off firing for a while for fear of hitting us. "Why, these are apprentices of ours—indentured apprentices. We've bought them from their parents by honest trade—paid for 'em with Sniders, ammunition, calico and tobacco; and if you want to see our papers and theirs, Monsieur, here they are, look you, all perfectly en règle," and he held up the bundle for us to inspect in full—with a telescope, I suppose—at a hundred yards' distance.
"Row nearer, boys," I said, "and we'll talk a bit with this polite gentleman. He seems to have views of his own, I fancy, about the proper method of engaging servants."
But when we tried to row up the Frenchman stopped and called out at the top of his voice, in a very different tone, all bustle and bluster, "Look out ahead there! If you come a yard closer we open fire. We want no interference from any of you Methodistical missionary fellows."
"We ain't missionaries," I answered quietly, cocking my revolver in the friendliest possible fashion right in front of him; "we're traders and yachtsmen. Show 'em your Remingtons, boys, and let 'em see we mean business! That's right. Ready! present!—and fire when I tell you! Now then, Monsieur, you bought these boys, you say. So far, good. Next then, if you please, who did you buy them from?"
The Frenchman turned pale when he saw we were well-armed and meant inquiry; but he tried to carry off still with a little face and bluster. "Why, their parents, of course," he answered, with a signal to his friends in the ship to cover us with their fire-arms.