“Becase,” he replied, “the chaps aboard the barque don’t seem to be able to undershtand a worrud we say to thim; and bedad we’re in the same fix with regar–rd to thim. So we want an interpreter; and maybe you’ll be able to act that same for us.”
“Very well,” said I; “what do you want me to do?”
“Whoy, we’ll take it kindly of ye if you’ll just be so obligin’ as to shtep aboard the barque, and say what we want ye to say,” answered the fellow. “But, mind,” he added warningly, “don’t ye attimpt to say annything else, or by the Piper it’ll be the worse for ye—and for the young woman down below. I can undershtand Frinch like a native—so I shall know everything that you say—but begorra the Oirish brogue of me makes it difficult for thim froggies to undershtand me when I shpake to thim.”
“All right,” I answered, perfectly easy in my mind, “you can stand alongside me, and hear everything that passes.”
So saying, without further ado I leapt upon the brig’s bulwarks, from thence to those of the barque, and so down upon her deck, closely followed by O’Gorman.
Chapter Ten.
We plunder the French barque.
As my feet touched the barque’s deck, I flung a lightning glance about me to gather as much information as possible, not knowing but that at any moment such knowledge might be of priceless value to me. The craft was somewhat bigger than I had at first set her down to be, being of fully four hundred, or maybe four hundred and fifty, tons measurement. Looking for’ard to the swell of her bows, I saw that she must evidently be of a motherly build, which accorded well with the fact that she had lost steerage-way long before such had been the case with the brig. Her decks were in a very dirty and untidy condition, looking as though they had not been washed down, or even swept, for at least a week, and they were lumbered up with quite an unusual number of spars and booms. Yet she was evidently a passenger ship, for the cabin under her full poop was brilliantly lighted up, and through its open door I caught a glimpse of several men and women so attired as to at once proclaim their status on board; moreover, the quarter-deck was also occupied by a group of men and women, evidently passengers, with two or three sailorly-looking men among them, over whom a party of O’Gorman’s people were mounting guard, the remainder being stationed on guard over the fore-scuttle, down which I presumed the barque’s crew had been driven.