“Me, Snowball, sah—a ’spectable collud genleman from Jamaikey, massa,” replied the voice in the hold.
“And what the dickens are you doing aboard my ship?” asked Captain Dinks in an angry tone; but the others could see that he was half-laughing as he spoke.
“Me want passage, sah, back home. Very bad peoples, sah, in Plymouth; tieve all poah niggah’s money and make him drunk. Snowball starbing; so um see lubly fine ship goin’ way and get aboard in shore boat wid um last shillun: eb’ryting scramble and jumble when come on deck; so Snowball go get in cabin, and den down in hold, where he see steward stow um grub, and lie quiet till ship sail. When hold open, he try get out, but can’t; box fall on um foot, and Snowball holler wid pain; steward tink um de Debbel and knock down tings. Snowball done no harm; um bery bad wid um leg!”
“Sure, an’ it’s an impedent schoundrel he is, the spalpeen!” said the mate. “Of all the cheeky stowaways I ever came across, he bates the lot entirely. Shall I rouse him up with a rope’s end, cap’en?”
“No, wait a bit, McCarthy,” said the captain; “we’ll try a little persuasion first. Here, ‘Snowball,’ or whatever else you call yourself, just sling your hook out of that, and come up here. I fancy I shall be able to accommodate you with something, besides a free passage at my owner’s expense!”
“Can’t, massa,” replied the stowaway, after making a movement, as they could hear, below, succeeded by a suppressed cry of pain; “um leg jammed ’tween box and cask: Snowball feel bery bad—tink leg go squash: can’t move um nohow.”
“Be jabers!” exclaimed the good-natured Irishman, “sure an’ the poor baste’s hurt, and, by your lave, cap’en, I’ll go down and say what’s the matther.”
“Do,” said Captain Dinks; but ere he could get out the word, the mate, taking his consent for granted, had caught hold of the hatchway coamings with his powerful hands and swung himself down on to the lower deck; reaching up afterwards for the lantern, which the captain handed him, and then disappearing from view as he dived amongst the heterogeneous mass of boxes and casks, and bales of goods, mingled with articles of all sorts, with which the place was crammed.
After a moment’s absence, he came back beneath the hatchway.
“Plaze, git a blanket or two out of one of the cabins, cap’en, to hoist him up,” said he; “the unlucky beggar sames to be injured badly, and I think his ribs are stove in, besides a heavy box having fallen on his leg. He hasn’t got such a chape passage this toime as he expected; for he has been more’n half suffocated in the flour hogshead where he first stowed himself away; and, begorrah, to look at him now, with his black face all whitened, like a duchess powthered for a ball, and his woolly hid, and the blood all over him, as if he had been basted wid a shillelagh at Donnybrook Fair, why, his own mother wouldn’t know him. It’s small blame to that fool of a steward to be afther taking him for somethin’ onnatural, sure!”