Gascoyne started. He had not thought of this. He had not fully realized the fact that he was to be deprived of his liberty so soon. In the merited indignity which was now to be put upon him, he recognized the opening act of the tragedy which was to terminate with his life.
"Be it so," he said, lowering his head, and sitting down on a carronade, in order to avoid the gaze of those who surrounded him.
While this was being done, the youthful Corrie was in the fore part of the schooner whispering eagerly to Alice and Poopy.
"O Alice! I've seen him!" exclaimed the lad.
"Seen who?" inquired Alice, raising her pretty little eyebrows just the smallest morsel.
"Why, the boatswain of the Talisman, Dick Price, you know, who jumped overboard to save Henry when he fell off the raft. Come, I'll point him out."
So saying, Corrie edged his way through the crowd until he could see the windlass. Here, seated on a mass of chain cable, sat a remarkably rugged specimen of the British boatswain. He was extremely short, excessively broad, uncommonly jovial, and remarkably hairy. He wore his round hat so far on the back of his head that it was a marvel how it managed to hang there, and smoked a pipe so black that the most powerful imagination could hardly conceive of its ever having been white, and so short that it seemed all head and no stem.
"That's him!" said Corrie, eagerly.
"Oh! is it?" replied Alice, with much interest.
"Hee! hee!" observed Poopy.