“Let him stand forward,” said Don, beginning to enter as much into the novelty of the thing as Jack himself.
The culprit, a sleek old fellow with shaven head, crafty eyes, and a rosary of wooden beads about his neck, was shoved to the front.
“Are you the chap who was whipped off the grounds last year for selling chaims?” demanded Don.
“Your honour speaking true words.” whined the shark-charmer, salaaming until his shaven head almost touched the deck; “I same rascal.”
“I say, Jack,” whispered Don, “I shan't have him whipped, you know. We'll, make him walk the plank.”
“Capital! Hell funk, certain, and there'll be no end of fun.”
“Well do it, then,” said Don decidedly. “Go forward and order two of the lascars to take the boat and lie under the schooner's quarter—-this side, you know—ready to pick him up.”
In high glee Jack departed to execute this commission, while Don again turned to the shark-doctor.
“Do you happen to have one of those charms about you?” he asked.
“One here got, sa'b,” said the fellow, producing from the folds of his waist-cloth an ola or fragment of palm-leaf, covered with cabalistic characters. “Sa'b no look at him?”