“Brown, miss—at your service.”
“Well, good-bye, Brown, and God’s blessing attend you,” she said, extending her black little hand.
The seaman gently took it and gave it a timid pressure, as if he feared to crush it in his brawny hand.
“I’ll shake hands with you,” he said, “but I won’t say good-bye, for I’ll steer back to the city with you.”
“Brown, this is sheer madness. There is no reason in what you propose to do. You cannot help me by sacrificing yourself.”
“That’s exactly what yer father would say to you, miss, if he was alongside of us—‘You can’t help me by sacrificin’ of yerself.’ Then, p’r’aps he would foller up that obsarvation by sayin’, ‘but you may an’ can help me if you go wi’ that sailor-friend o’ mine, who may be rough and ready, but is sartinly true-blue, who knows the coast hereaway an’ all its hidin’-places, an’ who’ll wentur his life to do me a good turn, cause why? I once wentured my life to do him a good turn o’ the same kind.’”
“Is this true, Brown? Did you know my father before meeting him here; and did he really render you some service?”
“Yes, indeed, miss; I have sailed in one o’ your father’s wessels, an’ once I was washed overboard by a heavy sea, and he flung over a lifebuoy arter me, and jumped into the water himself to keep me afloat till a boat picked us up, for I couldn’t swim. Now, look ’ere, miss, if you’ll consent to sail under my orders for a short spell, you’ll have a better chance o’ doin’ your father a sarvice than by returnin’ to that nest o’ pirates. Moreover, you’ll have to make up your mind pretty quick, for we’ve lost too much time already.”
“Go on, Brown, I will trust you,” said Hester, placing her hand in that of the seaman, who, without another word, led her swiftly into the bush.
Now, all this, and a great deal more was afterwards related by Hester herself to her friends; but at the time all that was known to Sally—the only witness of the exploit—was that Hester Sommers had been carried off in the manner related by an apparently friendly British sailor. This she told soon after to Peter the Great, and this was the substance of the communication which Peter the Great, with glaring eyes and bated breath, made to George Foster, who received it with feelings and expressions that varied amazingly as the narrative proceeded.