“Yesh,” said Gilbot, holding out his rumkin to be refilled. “What’s a Spaniard, anyway? Let’sh have a shong.”
And as Joe, his wrath hardly one whit abated, dragged the half-suffocated Blueneck down the road to the sea, he heard the jovial strains of “Pretty Poll” roared out in lively chorus from the Ship’s kitchen:
“Pretty Poll she loved a sailor
And well she loved he,
But he sailed to the mouth
Of a stream in the South,
And was lost in the rolling sea,
Lost in the rolling sea!”
“Ah, ha,” said Joe between his teeth as he shook his unfortunate captive by the collar. “And that’s what you’re goin’ to be, my lad, ‘lost in the rolling sea’.”
Blueneck opened his mouth to expostulate, but Joe swung him round like a meal sack and tightened his neckerchief, so that it was all he could do to breathe, and they hurried on.
Joe strode over the ground at a tremendous pace, dragging the Spaniard after him. And not one other word did he speak till they came to the waterside, where Joe’s little rowboat, the Amy, flopped and see-sawed on the rising tide.
Still keeping one hand on Blueneck’s collar, Joe stopped, caught at the riding-line, and pulled it in.
“Get in,” he commanded.
Blueneck obeyed as meekly as a lamb, and Joe stepped in after him, and pushed off. He rowed steadily for some seconds and, as the water was very calm, made good progress. About twenty-five yards from the shore he pulled in the oars and sat looking at the other man a full minute. Then he spoke sharply.
“Change places and row a bit,” he said.