“I guess this here island don’t belong to you, mister?” said Nat Slater sneeringly, on purpose apparently to make Fritz angry; but the young German remained perfectly cool and collected.
“I never said it did,” he answered. “Of course, you have every right to settle here if you like; but I and my brother decline having any association with you.”
“Oh, jist as you like, mister,” replied the American, now showing himself in his true colours, having evidently nourished a spite against the two brothers on account of Captain Brown’s friendship for them. “I’m durned if I kinder kear now to hang out along with you, as I sed at first; I’d rayther a durned sight stick to these good chaps haar, as hev more friendly feelins than a pair o’ blessed foreign coons that don’t know how to treat a free-born American citizen like a man! I guess, though, I’ll spile your sealing for you, if I hev any influence with the islanders.”
“You are welcome to do your worst,” said Fritz; and then, as young Glass was not amongst the Tristaners—who now seemed, either from the deck hand’s threat or on account of some other reason, to look upon them in rather a hostile manner—he and Eric withdrew from the party. Retiring at once to their boat, they returned to their own little settlement in the eastern bay, with the resolve of not coming out after the seals again until after the islanders had left the coast, so as not to risk any further altercation with them.
“It’s a great nuisance, though,” grumbled Eric, who was especially annoyed by the fact of their going back to the hut with an empty boat instead of the full cargo | he expected, similar to their first day’s experience of sealing. “I should like to pay out that mean Yankee for his spite. He’s not like a true sailor, for he wasn’t worth his salt aboard the Pilot’s Bride; and I’ve heard the skipper say that he only took him out of good nature and nothing else!”
“Yes, I know he only allowed him to come in order to save him from ruin at home,” Fritz said. “But, he might just as well have left him at Providence, for all the good the voyage has done him!”
“Well, he has spoilt our sealing, as he said he would,” observed Eric after a bit, when they were rounding the western promontory of their own little bay, and their cottage home was just in sight.
“Only to-day, or, at the worst, for but a short time longer,” replied Fritz. “The islanders will not stay for any period after they’ve filled their boat; and, of course, he will return with them to Tristan. He’s too lazy to stop here and shift for himself, although he would have been glad to sponge upon us.”
“Joy go with him when he leaves!” cried Eric heartily on the keel of their whale-boat touching the beach, when they then proceeded to draw her up on the shingle and take all their traps and gear out of her. They did this in case their American friend might persuade the islanders to come round to the bay and make a raid on their property, so as to prevent them from interfering with their sealing—that being the only grievance which they could possibly have against them.
However, as next morning, the whale-boat lay intact where they had left her, their suspicions of the Tristaners’ bad faith proved to be quite unfounded.