“Well, but it isn’t nice to kill a man, or even a nigger! I hope he ain’t dead,” said Pet, uneasily.
“Never you mind the monkey! Served him right if he is! I do hope he’s gone to ‘Davy’s locker,’ where he’ll get a warmer welcome. Why, he would have killed you, Pet!”
“I expect he would; though I don’t see where would be the good of killing a little thing like me,” said Pet, thoughtfully humane. “I say, uncle, I’d like to go and see if he’s dead!”
“And may I be swung to the yard-arm if I let you go a step! Does the girl want to get killed again?” said the admiral, puffing up and down the room, with his hands stuck in his pockets, like a stranded porpoise.
“No; the girl doesn’t want to get killed,” said Pet, crossly. “I’m not going to be killed so easily, thank you! But it seems to me you might mount two or three of the servants, and let them come with me; and I will call for Ray Germaine; and we’ll all go together to the woods, and, maybe, catch those runaway niggers that are frightening the lives out of people. I shot one of ’em, I know; and we can track him by his bleeding. There’s a reward offered, too, for whoever takes them up; and who knows but I may get it?”
“Set fire to the reward! That’s a good notion, though, about going in search of them when they’re wounded, Pet. Oh, you’re a jewel, Flibbertigibbet, and no mistake about it! There ought to be a song made about you. I’ll go, too; and there’s no time to lose. Pipe all hands, Firefly, while I go and look for my boots.”
“Now, why couldn’t he say ‘Call the servants,’ as well as ‘Pipe all hands’? which hasn’t a sensible sound at all,” said Pet, as she arose to obey. “Here, you! Jake, Tom, Bob!” she added, opening the door, and shouting at the top of her lungs, “come here as fast as you can. There’s murder in the camp!”
“Tumble up!” roared the admiral, from within.
“Tumble up!” repeated Pet, imitating the old sailor’s gruff roar as well as she could. “Uncle says so.”
Jake, and Tom, and Bob, most probably thinking, from the uproar, the house was on fire, “tumbled up” accordingly, precipitating themselves over one another, in their eagerness to be first on the field of battle.