“Ay, bo,” replied Tom, “I dessay I were, if the truth be told.”
This pleased Hiram immensely.
“Then, I guess I don’t see whaar yer crow comes in, my joker!” he exclaimed, giving Tom a similar thump on the back to that which he had a short time before bestowed on Sam—a slight token of affection by no means to be sneezed at. “Why, ye wer cacklin’ like a durned old hen with one egg, ’bout Cholly an’ I bein’ frit jest now, thinkin’ we seed Sam’s ghostess, when hyar, ye sez now, ye wer frit yerself the same at the fust sight ye seed of him!”
“Ay, bo; but I wern’t going to tell you that, nor ’bout another fright I next had, when the darkey and I were a-smoking down in the forepeak and nearly set the ship a-fire,” said Tom knowingly, with a shrewd, expressive wink to each of us respectively in turn, before he resumed his story. “But, to go on properly with my yarn from the beginning, when I found Sam’s head wasn’t a mop, but belonged to his real darkey self, and that he wasn’t drownded after all, why, I made him as snug as I could down below, thinking it were best for him to keep hid, for if the skipper saw him on dock and knew he were alive he would soon be shooting him again, or else ill-treating him in the way he had already done. Sam agreed to act by my advice on my promising to take him down grub and all he might want into the forepeak; but, bless you, the contrary darkey wouldn’t act up to this arrangement arter a day or two.”
“Dat was ’cause yer hab forget to bring de grub,” interposed Sam, to explain this apparent breach of contract on his part. “I’se cook, an’ not used fo’ ter go widout my vittles fo’ nobody!”
“How could I get below to you when we had bad weather and the hatches were battened down?” retorted Tom Bullover, in his turn. “Howsomdever, to stop arguefying, Master Sammy, finding himself hungry and knowing something of the stowage below from having been in the ship on a previous voyage, he manages to work a passage through the hold to the after part right under the cuddy; and from there my gentleman, if you please, makes his way on deck again through the hatchway in the captain’s cabin, not forgetting to rummage the steward’s pantry for provisions when he goes by!”
“An’ mighty little grub was dere, suah,” put in the negro cook, with great dignity. “I’se feel mean as a pore white if yer was ebbah come to my galley an’ fin’ sich a scrubby lot tings! Dere was nuffin’ fit fo’ a decent culler’d pusson ter eat—dat feller Morris Jones one big skunk!”
“I guess ye air ’bout right,” agreed Hiram; while Tom and I signified our assent likewise by nodding our heads with great unction. “He’s the biggest skunk I ever wer shipmets with afore!”
“Let him slide, for he don’t consarn us now,” said Tom, continuing the narrative of Sam’s story. “Well, you must know, our darkey friend here, having taken first to prowling about the ship for grub, keeps it up arterwards for pleesure and devarshun, thinking it a jolly lark to make the hands believe the old barquey was haunted. Then, one day he gets hold of his banjo from out of Hiram’s chest in the fo’c’s’le, where old Chicopee really did stow it away arter he bought it at the auction o’ Sam’s traps, as he thought he did, although I persuaded him and you Charley, too, if you remember, that the banjo had been left hanging up still in the galley in the place where Sam used to keep it. Once, indeed, when Sam forgot to put it back arter playing on it in the hold, where he had taken it, I brought it up and hung it on its old peg in the galley right afore your very eyes, Hiram!”
“I recollect, Tom,” said I; “and so, Sam used to play on it in the hold below, then, when we heard the mysterious music coming from we knew not where?”