“Ahoy! Hey, you!”
The American lad who was held in durance by the British sailor looked up and showed something besides the red flag of annoyance in his countenance.
“I say, you fellows!” he cried. “Help me out of this, will you?”
At this the huge British seaman for the first time appeared to see the four boys on the bank beside the road.
“My heye!” he bellowed, standing still, but wagging his head from side to side in a perfectly ridiculous way. “My heye! ’Ere’s a ’ole bloomin’ ship load of ’em. Ahoy, me ’earties, let the heagle scream!” and he led off in a mighty cheer that awoke the echoes of the heretofore peaceful countryside.
Frenchy and Ikey, in great glee, sprang up and cheered with him. But the expression in the countenance of the giant’s captive caused the two older Navy Boys to smother their amusement.
“That’s the way he’s been going on for four hours—and more,” groaned the captive. “Why! he hung on to my collar all the time we were eating dinner up there at that inn. Made the barmaid cut up his victuals for him. Paid her a shilling for doing it.”
“Say, is her name Flora?” Ikey asked, at once interested. “Is that the girl Frenchy was just talking about?”
But Torrance quenched him with a hand on his mouth. The situation of the Yankee youth in that giant’s hands seemed more serious than they supposed. The grip of the big hand never relaxed.
“’Ere we are, all together, me ’earties,” rumbled the giant. “Hi’m glad to know yuh. Hi’m Willum Johnson, ’im that ’ad a barrow hin the Old Kent Road before the war. Hand jolly well knowed Hi was to the perlice,” confessed the man frankly.