Lance, thoroughly amused at the comical incongruity of the situation, sat down and rattled off “Yankee Doodle,” an air which he judged would be likely to find appreciation with his queer companion.
Johnson stood for a moment spell-bound as the well remembered strains fell upon his ear, then a broad grin of delight overspread his features, and finally he began to caper about the sail-loft in the most extraordinary manner, and to utter certain unearthly sounds which Lance fancied was Johnson’s idea of singing.
“Something else! gimme some more,” the pirate captain exclaimed rapturously, when his entertainer at length raised his fingers from the key-board. Whereupon Lance began to play and sing “Hail, Columbia.” Johnson stood still and silent as a statue now, the stirring strains touched an altogether different chord of his memory, and for an instant something suspiciously like a tear glistened in his eye.
“Thank you,” he said very quietly, when Lance had finished, “that will do now; I would rather not hear any more at present. Let me keep the sound of that song in my mind as long as I can; my little maid at home used to sing that to me. But, look here,” he added, as Lance closed the instrument, “if you wish to be on good terms with the men after I am gone, have them all up in the meeting-room sometimes of an evening, and treat them to a little music; they will appreciate that, and you could do nothing more likely to win their regard. Why shouldn’t you give ’em—give us all—a concert to-night, to-day being a holiday?”
Lance hesitated for a moment before making answer to this strange and unexpected proposal.
“To tell you the truth,” he said at last, “I am afraid your people will be hardly in a mood to-night to appreciate such music as I could give them; the grog will have got into their heads, and they will be more inclined to sing among themselves than to sit quietly to listen to me.”
“Not at all,” answered Johnson, who, now that a serious mood was upon him, had entirely dropped his Americanism of speech, “not at all; I have taken care to give orders that they shall not have sufficient to make them noisy. You will find them perfectly quiet and orderly, and I confess I should like to see the effect of a little genuine good music upon them.”
“Very well,” answered Lance nonchalantly, “I am sure I have no objection; and, now that you have mentioned it, I confess I feel curious to see the result of so novel an experiment.”
“Then it is settled,” said Johnson; and he forthwith summoned a party of men, to some of whom he gave orders to remove to the hut the pianoforte Lance had chosen, while to others was deputed the task of taking one of the other instruments into the large room used for purposes of general assembly, and placing the room in proper order for the evening’s entertainment, which was fixed to commence at the orthodox hour of eight o’clock.
When Lance Evelin sauntered into the hut he was assailed by a general chorus of questions.