“Me!” exclaimed Captain Miles bursting into a loud laugh. “You, you mean, with that swell blue coat that you gave him, and which you used, no doubt, to win all the ladies’ hearts with ashore, when it was in its prime!”
“Oh, no,” retorted the mate, smiling too. “When Jake has got his Sunday rig on, he walks up the poop-ladder to prayers with all your dignity. Why, anyone would take him to be the skipper of the ship!”
“Talking of prayers and niggers,” said Captain Miles at this point, turning the conversation, as he thought the mate was having a sly poke at him, “I heard one day a little time back a rather good yarn about two darkeys, and, as it was told by a clergyman at a missionary meeting, I don’t suppose there can be any great harm in the story.”
“Well, heave ahead with it,” interposed Mr Marline.
“You see,” began the captain, “these two niggers—we’ll call them Josh and Quashee for shortness—happened to be in a boat which got drifted out to sea accidentally, from the tow-rope slipping or something else; and, they didn’t know their danger till suddenly they found themselves far from land, with no oars in the boat and no means of getting to shore again. To make matters worse, too, the sea began to get up on account of the wind rising.”
“I wish it would do so now,” said Mr Marline with much emphasis.
“So do I,” returned Captain Miles with equal heartiness; “but, as there isn’t any chance of that as far as I can see, I may as well go on with my story.”
“Do, sir,” said the other.
“Well, then,” continued the captain, “as soon as Josh and Quashee realised their peril, of course they got into a great funk; but, after puzzling their brains as to the best means of getting back, and shouting themselves hoarse in calling for help, they gave up the thing as a gone case, sitting down on the thwarts and bewailing their fate. Josh, the younger negro, however, had the most go in him, and presently he roused up.
“‘Say, Quashee,’ he asked of the other, ‘can you pray, sonny?’