In a moment the rope was cast off, and Rosco was free. Then Ebony, bidding him keep up his heart, glided out of the cavern and left him in profound darkness.
Captain Fitzgerald searched the island high and low, far and wide, without success, being guided during the search chiefly by Ebony.
That wily negro, on returning to the village, found that the search had already begun. The captain had taken care that no one, save those to whom he had already spoken, should know what or who he was searching for, so that the pirate might not be prematurely alarmed. Great, therefore, was his surprise when he was accosted by the negro, and asked in a mysterious manner to step aside with him out of ear-shot of the sailors who assisted him.
“What have you got to say to me, my man?” he asked, when they had gone a few yards into the palm-grove.
“You’s lookin’ for the pirit!” said Ebony in a hoarse whisper, and with a superhumanly intelligent gaze.
“Why, how came you to know that?” asked the captain, somewhat perplexed and thrown off his guard.
“Ho! ho!” laughed Ebony in a subdued voice, “how I comes to know dat, eh? I come to knows many t’ings by putting dis an’ dat togider. You’s cappen ob man-ob-war. Well, you no comes here for notting. Well, Rosco de pirit, de horroble scoundril, hims lib here. Ob course you come for look for him. Hofficers ob de Brish navy got notting else to do but kotch an’ hang sitch varmints. Eh? I’s right?”
“Well, no,” returned Captain Fitzgerald, laughing, “not altogether right as to the duties of officers of the British navy. However, you’re right as to my object, and I see that this pirate is no friend of yours.”
“No friend, oh! no—not at all. Him’s far more nor dat. I lub him as a brudder,” said the negro with intense energy.
Captain Fitzgerald laughed again, for he supposed that the negro spoke ironically, and Ebony extended his thick lips from ear to ear because he foresaw and intended that the captain would fall into that mistake.