“No,” came from the men unanimously, “we wouldn’t.”
“All right, then; I see ye’re with me,” said the skipper, wagging his beard about as he lay down the law. “I confess I didn’t like it. The nigger sed he hocussed our grub; but seeing ez how I an’ the first-mate wer took so bad, I believed he’d pizened us, an’ it rizzed my dander, an’ so I went fur him.”
“Aye, aye,” sang out the men, as if endorsing this free and rather one-sided version of the affair, Hiram Bangs the captain’s countryman, chiming in with a “Right you air, boss!”
“But you need not have shoot hims,” insisted Jan Steenbock, perceiving that the skipper was getting the men to take a more lenient view of the transaction than he did. “Ze mans not go avays. You could put hims in ze irons!”
“So I could, me joker; though I can’t see ez how it’s yer place to top the officer over me, Mister Steenbock,” retorted the skipper, with some of his old heat. “Ye’ve hed yer say, an’ the men hev hed their’n; an’ now I’ll hev mine, I reckon! The nigger wer in fault in the fust place, an’ I’m sorry I wer tew hard on him; but, now he’s gone overboard, thaar’s nuthin’ more to be done, fur all the talkin’ in the world won’t bring him back agen! I’ll tell ye what I’ll do, though.”
“What?” shouted out Tom Bullover. “What will you do?”
Captain Snaggs recognised his voice now, in spite of its being nearly dark, and he uttered an expressive sort of snorting grunt.
“Ha! ye’re the coon, are ye, thet cried murder, hey?” I heard him mutter under his breath menacingly; and then, speaking out louder he said, that all could hear, “I tell ye what I’ll do: I am willin’ to go ashore at the first available port we ken stop at an’ lay the whole of the circumstances before the British or American consul, an’ take the consequences—fur you all ken give evidence against me if ye like! I can’t say fairer nor thet men, can I?”
“No, cap,” they chorussed, as if perfectly satisfied with this promise, “nothing can be fairer nor that!”
“All right; thet ’ll do, the watch, then.”