“Well, you are quiet, my lad. Now we’ll see if we can’t hoist you up here in the saloon.”
“Thank ye, sir!” said Gibbs, aloud; and then he muttered to himself, “Let me jest get one grip of ye, and I’ll show ye how quiet I’ll be.”
“Do you think we shall need assistance, my son?” whispered the padre into the ear of his patron.
“Diavolo! No. I never wanted help in these little affairs, except in the case of that violent Yankee whaler, who gave us much trouble, you know, and we were obliged to call Pedillo,” replied the captain, in the same low tone. Then, raising his voice, he said,
“Hark ye, Master Gibbs! Babette will lift you off the stones, and the padre and I will raise you up to the room here. You don’t weigh so much as you did before you had your leg hacked off with a hand-saw––ho! and I dare say you are as light now as a dried stockfish! Up with him, Baba! There––steady! all right––here you are!”
Saying this, Captain Brand, with the assistance of the stout negress and the padre, raised the once burly ruffian, with a vigorous hoist that made him groan, to the floor of the saloon, where they laid him out at full length on his back.
“Wait a moment, my hearty, till the hatch is raised, and then we will raise you. Unpleasant position, no doubt,” continued Captain Brand, as the trap came up and was secured by a spring; “but then, you know, you would have that pin of yours cut off, and somehow you have been so careless as to dispose of the nice leg you had the other day, made out of the spruce fore-top-mast of the ‘Centipede’––a very tough bit of a spar it was.”
Here Master Gibbs grated his teeth and grinned hideously.
The captain smiled like a demon, and, approaching the prostrate cripple, said cheerfully––ay, in a frank and hearty tone––