“Give us another jolly song, Stingo; it will keep your throat clear for the claret.”
“For the sake of my old timbers, sir, and as you vally my wife’s blessing, don’t sing! There, you infarnal beast, you’ve yawed sharp up into this ere bush, and put my starboard glim out forever! I say, Don Spanisher, don’t sing––I’m going fast enough!” shouted the poor skipper, as he passed his paws around the little brute’s neck, with his hat over his eyes.
“Colonel,” said Burns, as he reined up, and gave the perverse little donkey a cut with his whip, which elicited another hoarse roar from the old sailor as the animal half doubled himself up, and then ambled away like a yawl in a short sea, until he came up to the people ahead, when he stood stock-still and brayed maliciously, “have you another cigar, colonel? Thankee! Fine scenery this about here––never visited Jamaica before? Ye have been off the island, eh? It’s a nate little spot Piron has there, that it is; and the whole of us will be mighty sorry to lose him. Is he going to lave? Yes, he is; and, what is worse, he is going to take his swate wife and her sister. 235 Is the sister handsome? Begorra! handsome? Why, man, she’s a beauty! And didn’t I crack the elbow-joint of that ugly, abusive divil, Peter Growler, for saying he had seen a gray hair in her head, when I knew it was only a loose thread from her lace cap––and me in love with her all the time. Bad luck to him! he’s never fired a pistol since.”
Here Paddy Burns’s small eyes twinkled as he slowly raised the stock of his riding-whip at a slender lance-wood-tree about twelve yards off, and gave the lash a sharp crack.
The person on the spirited barb almost unconsciously put his right hand in his pocket.
Take care, Paddy Burns; the colonel has a cool hand and a colder eye, and has made a study of pistols––cannon and swivels too, perhaps. Knows the cutlass exercise as well, and has had considerable experience in bullets, knives, and ropes. Has murdered women––lots of them. Wouldn’t stick at killing a child with a junk bottle. And as for men––pshaw! Keep a bright look-out, Paddy. Why, he’d drown your mother if you had a sister to love. For didn’t he drag his own old father and mother down to a dishonored grave? and do you think, you brave, honest little Irishman, that he would sleep a wink the less sound for putting you to death? Bah! man. Shoot all the game you spring, but don’t waste powder on a tiger or a shark. You would like to take a mutual shot with him, though? Of course you would––who doubts it? But then, gentlemen fight gentlemen; and this colonel at your elbow is a scoundrel, miscreant, villain, assassin, and––pirate! So you can’t take a crack at him, Paddy Burns.
CHAPTER XL.
PAUL DARCANTEL.
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“From the strong will, and the endeavor, That forever Wrestles with the tide of fate; From the wrecks of hope far scattered, Tempest shattered, Floating waste and desolate.” |