“Shiver my binnacle!” roared he, advancing with a series of hitches and extended hand to meet them. “Shiver my binnacle if it ain't Master Don and Master Jack made port again! An' split my topsails, yonder's the little nigger swab a-bearin' down under full sail out o' the offin! Lay alongside the old hulk, my hearties, an' tell an old shipmate what may be the meaning of it all. Where away might the schooner be, I axes?”
“To tell you the truth, Captain Mango,” said Don, shaking the old sailor by the hand in hearty fashion, “on that point we're as much at sea as yourself. We pulled ashore last night on a little matter of business of our own—without the skipper's knowledge, you understand—and when we returned here this morning the schooner had sailed.”
“Shiver my figger-head if ever I hear'd any yarn to beat that!” roared the captain, gripping Jack by the hand in turn. “An' d'ye mean to say now, as ye ain't atween decks, sound asleep in your bunks, when the wessel gets under weigh?”
“Not we,” cried Jack, laughing at the captain's puzzled face and earnest manner; “we were miles down the coast just then.”
“Belay there!” sang out the captain, rubbing his stubbly chin in greater perplexity than ever. “Blow me if I'm able to make out what tack you're on, lad. For, d'ye see, I lays alongside o' the wessel somewheres about eight bells—arter they fires the signal gun, d'ye see—to pay my 'specks to the master like, and shiver my bulk-head, when I axes what might your bearin's be, lads, he ups an' says, 'The younkers be below decks,' says he; an' so he weighs anchor, an' shapes his course for Colombie.”
“It's plain there's been a double misunderstanding,” said Don; “we knew nothing of the guv's intention to sail this morning, and he knew nothing of our absence from the schooner. He, of course, thought we were below, and so sailed without us. As I hinted just now, we're ashore on business of our own. Fact is, we're in a fix, and we want your advice.”
“Adwice is it?” cried the captain, leading his visitors indoors; “fire away, lads, till I hears what manner o' stuff you wants, and the wery best a water-logged old seaman can give ye, ye shall have—shiver my figger-head if ye shan't! Howsomedever, afore we lays our heads together like, I'll pipe the cook and order ye some wittles.” This hospitable duty performed, the captain threw himself into a chair with his “main-brace,” as he jocosely termed his wooden leg, extended before him, and, bidding Don proceed with what he had to say, composed himself to listen. Whereupon Don recounted the cause and manner of the shark-charmer's punishment, the discovery and subsequent loss of the pearls, together with their reasons for suspecting the shark-charmer of the theft, as well as how they had been tricked by the latter's supposed accomplice, and on making their way back to the beach had found, not the schooner as they expected, but a deserted roadstead.
“The thief has crossed the Strait, there's no doubt about that,” he concluded. “We want to hire a boat and go in pursuit of him; but the governor's sudden departure has placed us in a dilemma. The fact is, captain, we haven't enough cash to——”
“Belay there!” roared the captain, stumping across the room to a side-table. “Hold hard, lads, till I has a whiff o' the fragrant! Shiver my maintop! there's nothing like tobackie for ilin' up a seaman's runnin' gear, says you!”
Filling a meerschaum pipe of high colour and huge dimensions from a pouch almost as large as a sailor's bag, the captain reseated himself, and for some minutes puffed away in silence.