“Blesh my soul!” he exclaimed, as the skipper had concluded. “Ash I live, a wonderful shtory! But how ish he ever to find hish sister? He might ash well look for a needle in a hayshtack.”
“Wall, that’s true enough,” replied the slave-skipper. “As for that,” added he, with an air of stoical indifference, “’taint no business o’ mine. My affair hez been to carry the young fellur acrost the Atlantic; an’ I’m willin’ to take him back on the same tarms, and at the same price, if he kin pay it.”
“Did he pay you a goodsh price?” inquired the Jew, with evident interest in the answer.
“He paid like a prince, as I’ve told you. D’ye see that batch o’ yellow Mandingoes by the windlass yonder?”
“Yesh-yesh!”
“Forty there air—all told.”
“Wen?”
“Twenty on ’em I’m to have for fetchin’ him acrost. Cheap enough, ain’t it?”
“Dirt sheep, friend Showler. The other twenty?”
“They are hisn. He’s brought ’em with him to swop for the sister—when he finds her.”