"Well," he bawled, in a loud, hoarse voice, "poor Ned is on his way to h—l hot-foot to-night. I just came by his stew-hole over yonder. Pah!"—here the fellow spat upon the floor—"he was screeching and howling and yelling as though the d—l was basting him already."
"Who's with him now?" says one of the fellows at the table.
"Who's with him?" says the other, in a mightily contemptuous tone. "Why, d'ye think that anybody would be such a — — fool as to stay with him now, with nothing to be got for it but the black tongue and a cursing?"
"But what I say is this," said an ill-looking one-eyed fellow: "he's not the man to serve his trade for all these here years and nothing to show for it. It's all very well to say that Jack Mackra shot the hoops off his luck; but you mark my words, he's got a cable out to windward somewhere, and he ain't goin' to run on the lee shore with an empty hold." I was so amazed to hear my own name spoken that I knew not at first whether to believe that which mine ears had heard or whether they had heard aright. Then it was as though a sudden light flashed upon me. I needed not the next speech to tell me everything.
"Well," says one of the fellows, "even if so be as Ned England is going to smell brimstone before this time to-morrow, I for one see no reason to lose our game. Come along, Blake," he sang out to the fellow who had been speaking to me, and who rejoined the others upon being bidden.
I was in a great ferment of spirits at all this, for I perceived very clearly that England was mightily sick, and perhaps dying, with that dangerous fever known as the "black tongue," from which it is a rare thing for a man to recover with his life.
I observed that the fellow who had lately come into the ordinary did not join in the game along with the rest, but sat looking on. By-and-by I contrived to catch his eye as he glanced in my direction, whereupon I beckoned to him, and he came over to the table where I sat. Only a few words passed between us, and those in a very low tone.
"Is Ned England all alone?" said I.
"Yes," said he.
"Will you show me where he is?" said I.