“Well, it’ll be a toss down with me whichever is the strongest,” said the accommodating tar, as he once more raised the cup to his lips, and drained it.
“But, I say, you unhung mutineer, do you mean for to tell me that all them good-lookin’ boys an’ girls are yours?”
He looked round on the crowd of open-mouthed young people, who, from six-foot Toc down to the youngest staggerer, gazed at him solemnly, all eyes and ears.
“No, they ain’t,” answered Adams, with a laugh. “What makes you ask?”
“’Cause they all calls you father.”
“Oh!” replied his host, “that’s only a way they have; but there’s only four of ’em mine, three girls an’ a boy. The rest are the descendants of my eight comrades, who are now dead and gone.”
“Well, now, d’ye know, John Adams, alias Smith, mutineer, as ought to have bin hung but wasn’t, an’ as nobody would have the heart to hang now, even if they had the chance, this here adventur is out o’ sight one o’ the most extraor’nar circumstances as ever did happen to me since I was the length of a marlinspike.”
As Mainmast here entered to announce that the pig was ready for consumption, the amazed mariner was led to a rich repast under the neighbouring banyan-tree. Here he was bereft of speech for a considerable time, whether owing to the application of his jaws to food, or increased astonishment, it is difficult to say.
Before the repast began, Adams, according to custom, stood up, removed his hat, and briefly asked a blessing. To which all assembled, with clasped hands and closed eyes, responded Amen.
This, no doubt, was another source of profound wonder to Jack Brace, but he made no remark at the time. Neither did he remark on the fact that the women did not sit down to eat with the males of the party, but stood behind and served them, conversing pleasantly the while.