“Ids some of dem nadives,” he said; “ve cannod vaste dime on dem.”
“Natives nothing! you thundering blockhead!” roared Gerald Hamer. “If they were, you’d stop and see what trouble they were in, or I’d know why. But I tell you they are white men, and Americans. I know the Yankee tongue when I hear it, if you don’t; so stop your ship, and stop her quick, too, or, by Hookey, I and my men will stop her for you!”
Thick-headed as he was, the mate realized in a moment that he could not safely refuse to obey this command, backed as it was by a score of sturdy Americans who, at the sound of their leader’s voice, were gathering about him like a swarm of angry hornets. So he gave the requisite order in a surly tone, and the recently-started engines were again stopped.
“Bud I shall nod risg my mans for dot dirdy nadives,” he said. “If a boad goes, den musd you dake it yourselluf.”
“Take it myself! Certainly I will!” cried Gerald Hamer. “Do you suppose I’d let you or your lubberly crew have the honor of rescuing one of my countrymen? Not much! Here, men, I want half a dozen volunteers for dangerous boat-duty. Now don’t all speak at once.”
But they did, and, as though with the voice of one man, raised a mighty shout of “Aye, aye, sir!”
Their leader smiled as he detailed six men to lower a boat and go with him in it. To the others he said: “You fellows stay here, and see that this ship doesn’t move an inch till I come back. Not an inch, if I’m gone a year. Do you hear?”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
“And keep the ship’s bell ringing eight bells till I get back, too, so that I can locate her if we get out of sight.”