“Well, come aboard and get some breakfast.”
“Man, I'm going after the old fule! He's got no sail and canna be twenty mile awa'. I'll pick him up before he gets to Milli Lagoon, which is only saxty miles from here.”
Packenham swore. “You infernal ass! Are you going to sea in a breeze like this by yourself? Where's your crew?”
“The deevils wadna' come wi' me to look for a Papist. And I'm not going to let the auld fule perish.”
“Then come alongside and take a couple of our Savage Island boys. I can spare them.”
“No, no, captain. I'm not going tae delay ye when ye're bound to the eastward and I'm going the ither way. Ye'll find me here safe enough when ye come back in anither month. And I'll pick up the auld deevil and the wee bit lassie before mid-day.”
And then, with his red beard spreading out across his shoulders, Macpherson let his boat pay off before the wind. In an hour he was out of sight.
Three weeks afterwards the Sadie Perkins sperm whaler of New Bedford, came across a boat, five hundred miles west of Mâdurô. In the stern sheets lay that which had once been Macpherson, the “auld fule Papist, and the wee bit lassie.”