"How?" inquired the Minion.
"That's so!" said the Captain. "I s'pose he saw a serpent or something in here. Got a mark or something, 't makes him to act so. How'd ye find the Mate, boy?"
"Lookin' for somepun," answered the Minion, in the longest sentence that I had ever heard him utter.
I felt kindly hands busied about me. It was so delightful that I lay there just to be taken care of. I felt the Captain unclasping those rusty catches and saying his "Suz! suz! suz!" over and over.
"Think o' bein' triced up and left for dead!" commented the Captain.
"'Tain't bad," I heard the Minion answer. "Pirates is fine."
"'Tain't bad, ain't it?" said the Skipper. "Why, boy, hell's a garden party to it; that's what it is, a garden party, hell is. Look there on the deck! See where those beasts were fightin' for the first bite of the Mate. Why in thunder don't this fellow come to?"
"Dead," said the Minion laconically. I promptly shuddered and opened my eyes. I did not say what every fainting or resuscitated man says when he first opens his eyes. Usually they ask, "Where am I?" I knew where I was, so I gasped, "Water!"
Upon this, action being easier and more agreeable than words to the Minion, he ran to the bowl and redeluged me with liquor.
"The lad," said I, partly raising myself on my elbow.