"Yis, sar," replied the cook with emphasis. "Git 'em quicker'n a man kin swaller his own head. Libes dar a man wid soul so dead"—
"Never mind the varse, Sopsy," interposed the captain.
"—As never to hisself have said"—
"Hurry up, Sopsy!"
"He don't say dat, Massa Cap'n," added the cook, as he shuffled off over the bales of cotton.
"Hullo there, Bokes! Where are you, Bokes?" called the captain again.
"On deck, Cap'n," replied a white man, crawling out from a small opening in the bales.
"Wake up, Bokes! You ain't dead yet."
"No, sir; wide awake's a coon in a hencoop," added the man, who appeared to be one of the two left on board by the deserters, the cook being the other.
"Be alive, Bokes! Here, wait a minute!" and the captain ran down the companion ladder to the cabin, from which he presently appeared with a bottle in each hand. "Do you see them men on the cotton, Bokes?" he asked, pointing with one of them at the six Belleviters, who stood where they had taken their stations after hoisting up the quarter-boat.