“Would it be possible?”
“I dunno as it would. No, I reckon it wouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“You couldn’t. The Dagoes are too strong. They’d send from Porto Bello, or they’d send overland perhaps, from Panama. They’d get yer. Then you’d have ginger, working on the forts in Portobel. Lots of ’em end that way on the Main. Yes, sir, the Main’s a queer place.”
“Queer?”
“We lost a boat’s crew once, east there, by Tolu or that. A handsome fellow her bow oar was. Bigger’n you he was. Handsome Jim Sanders, that was him. He worked on the forts in Portobel. We rescued him a year later, quite by accident. There was red cuts all over him; and all he could do was sing.”
“Sing?”
“Just sing. This was what he sung. He sung all the time. No. He didn’t laugh. He just whined a little and sang.”
The pirate dropped his voice to a whimper and sang:—
“Tom, Tom, the piper’s son,
Learned to pipe when he was young,
And all the tunes that he could play
Was over the hills and far away.