The voice that greeted Breeze so heartily was that of Captain Ezra Coffin, and the schooner he had just boarded was the Fish-hawk. The boy could hardly believe his senses. Could it be that he had again fallen in with friends on the high seas? Was this really the schooner he had left in Gloucester more than a month before? It did not seem possible, and yet here was Captain Coffin shaking his hand, old Mateo dancing about and trying for a chance to embrace him, and other familiar faces, seen dimly by the lantern-light, crowding forward to greet him.
Mateo, the cook, could not contain his joy, but danced and shouted extravagantly, “We found ’em! we found ’em! Me tella you fader we finda you, Breeza. Where zat rasca, Nimba, zat Guinea boy? You bringa him, eh, Breeza?”
“Here I,” cried Nimbus, who had stood back unnoticed as the crew crowded around Breeze. “Who callin’ me rask? Wot he mean? Ware he?”
At the sound of this voice old Mateo, who had just succeeded in embracing Breeze, left him, made one bound to where the black man stood, and seizing him by his wonderful ears, began to shake his head violently, exclaiming, “You no a raska, eh? you black pickaninny! Ole Mateo teacha you! He pulla you ear many time! you forgetta him, eh?”
Nimbus was at first bewildered and thrown off his guard by this sudden attack, but recovering himself quickly, he seized the little cook with his powerful hands, and raising him clear of the deck, held him, kicking and screaming, at arm’s-length above his head, while he executed a waddling, uncouth sort of a war-dance. As he did so he shouted, or rather chanted,
“Ah, you ole Mateo! Now I know um well! You ole Portugee man! You pull Nimbo’s ears when he pickaninny! You show um de cookin’ ob de duff an’ de scouse! Now you gwine a-fishin’! You t’ink you catch um one time mo’, but you is mistooken! He grown to be a whale! He catch you, an’ he eat you! You ole rask yo’se’f!”
All this was shouted out in a singsong tone, to which the grotesque dancing-steps of the black man kept time. The whole affair was so ludicrous that the members of the crew screamed with laughter, and rolled on the deck in the excess of their merriment. Even Captain Coffin and Breeze were compelled to join in the general mirth, and the latter laughed until the tears rolled down his cheeks. It was a great relief and pleasure to enjoy a hearty laugh once more after the sadness and anxiety of the days just past, and it did the boy more good than anything that could have happened just then.
The comical actions of Mateo and Nimbus were their peculiar modes of expressing great joy at again meeting with each other. Years before, Mateo, while cooking on board a vessel engaged in the African trade, had picked up Nimbus, then a boy, and taken him as an assistant. They had sailed together for several years, and had then lost sight of each other. This curious encounter in mid-ocean was their first meeting since that time.
When Nimbus set Mateo down, the old cook shook his fist in the face of his former pupil. He said nothing to him then, for he had just bethought himself of a neglected duty, and stepping over to where Breeze and the captain were standing, he uttered the famous expression that had so often proved a welcome one to the boy:
“Vell, Breeza, you hongry, eh?”