“Captain Marrs?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been three days looking for you, Captain Marrs. But I don’t cal’late you have such a thing as a drink of good liquor aboard, have you, Captain? I’m most famished.”
Wesley said no more—only led the way to the cabin and handed out a jug, a jug so full that from it the cork was yet to be taken for the first time. The messenger took the cork out and without help. He bit it out, and let the red rum of old Saint Pierre gurgle down after the manner in which all men said it should.
“Good?” asked Wesley.
The messenger sucked in his cheek and his lips kissed together lingeringly. “Good—m—m—you ought to try it yourself, Captain Marrs.”
Wesley did try it—a small, safe drink. “It is good, ain’t it?” and was about to put it back in the locker of his stateroom—was about to, but looking around and observing that wistful gathering he hadn’t the heart. Six of his own crew and a dozen natives were there, and they passed it along the locker, though not too rapidly. When Wesley got it back he “hefted” it. It felt pretty light. He shook it up. Gauging by sound was a good way, too, when the jug itself was heavy. It was light. “Lucky ’twas the little jug,” said Wesley, and he laid it at his feet with a sigh. “But what was it you was goin’ to say?” he asked of the boatman he had rescued from famishing.
“John Rose, of Folly Cove—you know him, Captain?”
“For more than twenty year. But what of him?”
“Well, John’s got five hundred barrels of as fine frozen herrin’ as ever a man laid eyes on, and he says for you to come and get ’em.”