Having said this, the captain waved his hand, and the English sailors fell back behind the assembled crew.
The master fisherman and his men were next brought forward. They had by this time become perfectly at home in the schooner. The master fisherman found that the life, which he would be likely to lead on board would suit his Spanish blood, and Spanish character, well. Down to that time, also, he had been well treated.
It is true, the discipline of the schooner had appeared to him, accustomed as he was to the free and independent life of one of his calling, rather hard and unbearable; but the good companionship, and the profits of a pirate’s life were sufficient, in his estimation, to outweigh that inconvenience. As for Jack Jimmy, and his other man, they, too, had familiarized themselves with their position: the latter seemed to care but for little, in this world, beside the luxury of eating, drinking, and sleeping. He found the schooner capable of furnishing him with those three things, and was not, therefore inclined, like the generality of mortals, to grumble about more, when he already enjoyed the three elements of his happiness.
The former, Jack Jimmy, it is true, was of a less contented, and more restless disposition; and the order and monotony of the schooner, to say nothing of the continual fear in which he had at first been kept, by the mystery of his novel position, tended to make him long for his own cabin; or, at best, for any other situation but the one in which he was then placed. He became, however, by degrees more satisfied, the longer he remained in the schooner; for, he was not ill-treated in the first place, and the tricks which the men played upon him, the voyage, and the other things—except, perhaps, the fight—which had happened since his arrival on board, contributed, in the second place, to afford that excitement which, it would seem, his nature craved.
As the master fisherman appeared, the captain delivered to him a purse, and said:
“That will compensate you for the time you have lost: you will be landed soon, you, and your men.”
Jack Jimmy had followed his master, or rather had been thrust forward with him, in a state of nervous trepidation. The movements of the little negro were as brisk and as rapid as those of a monkey. His head turned on his shoulders like a weather gauge in a storm, while his large white eyes were stretched open to their utmost width. His head seemed to be turned forwards, sideways, and backwards at the same time. One would have said that while he looked before him, he was afraid he should be struck backwards, or sideways; while he looked sideways, that he should be struck either from before or behind; and while he looked backwards, he was afraid that he should be struck from before or from the side.
He was going on thus, like an automaton in violent action, when the sound of the captain’s voice fell upon his ear. He seemed, at that moment, struck motionless. He fixed his eyes on him, lowered what supplied the place of eyebrows, opened his mouth, threw his head and neck as far forwards as he could, and remained rooted to the spot in deep examination of the young man before him.
This did not last long; for, with his, usually rapid movements, he threw himself at the foot of the captain, before he had quite finished the few words which he had addressed to the master fisherman, clasped his knees franticly in his arms, and yelled out,—“Garamighty! da ee—da ee—da me young massa.”