"I reckon you're a little more'n half drunk, Tom Bulger," replied Bird Riley, with a vigorous horse laugh. "Tow the schooner up to Mobile! Didn't I tell yer the Trafladagar's been waiting here three days for a good chance to run out?"
"You said that as true as you was born," added Graines, who thought it necessary to say something, for he had been nearly silent from the beginning.
"Sam Riley ain't quite so drunk as you be, Tom Bulger; an' he knows what's what; and thar he shows the Riley blood in his carcass," chuckled the mate.
"And you said the West Wind was loaded with cotton, in the hole and on deck," added Graines, hoping to hurry the conference along a little more rapidly.
"That's jest what I said. I reckon you ain't much used to apple-jack, fur it fusticates your intelleck, and makes yer forget how old y'are. Come, take another, jest to set your head up right," said Bird, passing the bottle to Christy, who was doing his best to keep up the illusion by talking very thick, and swaying his body about like a drunken man.
Both the guests went through the ceremony of imbibing, which was only a ceremony to them. The fire had exhausted its supply of fuel, and it was fortunate that the darkness prevented the revellers from measuring the quantity left in the bottles as they were returned to the owners, or they might have seen that the strangers were not doing their share in consuming the poison.
"Sam Riley does honor to the blood as runs in his body, for he ain't no more drunk'n I am; an' he knows what we been talkin' about," said the mate, who seemed to be greatly amused at the supposed effect of the liquor upon Christy. "You won't know nothin' about the Trafladagar or the West Wind in half an hour from now, Tom Bulger. I reckon it don't make no difference to you about the tandem team, and to-morrer mornin' you won't know how the team's hitched up."
"I don't think I will," replied Christy boozily, as he rolled over on the sand, and then struggled for some time to resume his upright position, to the great amusement of Bird Riley and his companions. "But Sam Riley's got blood in him, the best blood in Alabammy, and he kin tell you all about it if yer want ter know. He kin stan' up agin a whole bottle o' apple-jack."
"I say, Cousin Bird, what's this tandem team hitched up fer?" asked Graines, permitting his superior officer to carry out the illusion upon which he had entered, in order more effectually to blind the mate, and induce him to talk with entire freedom.
"I reckon you ain't too drunk to un'erstan' what I say, Sam, as t'other feller is."