“Pooh!” responded Scrumpydike: “is that all? Leave him to me, and I’ll thank ye for the job.”
“No, that mustn’t be: we must avoid every thing likely to create the least suspicion,” replied the captain.
“I’ll take care o’ that,” said the other: “I’ll watch my ’portunity when he’s a hanging over the side o’ the ship, as he does o’ nights when there ar’n’t a human near enough to catch a glimpse o’ his ’bominable carcass, and then with my ‘safe and sure’ here,” continued the fellow as he drew a long knife a little way from its concealment in his vest, “I’ll make a sweep into his bread-room, and afore he can ax what it’s for, I’ll heave him into a berth where he’ll lie snug as a wet blanket can make him.”
“It wo’n’t do, I tell you,” remarked his associate.
“Nobody needn’t know nothin’ about it,” added Scrumpydike.
“There is too much risk and not sufficient advantage to be gained by it,” said the captain. “Ah!” he continued, after a pause—“if I only had some of the old hands now, scrunch me, if I wouldn’t put matters to rights, after a fashion the fellows here don’t dream of.”
“Wouldn’t we? Breakers ahead! wouldn’t we?” cried the other with exultation. “But they’ve all cut their cables and gone adrift. There’s nothin’ but misfortunes in this here world. It’s a hard case for a fellow who’s sociably inclined to see his mates, as fine a set o’ villains as ever escaped hanging, partin’ company without cuttin’ each other’s throats or doin’ any thing in a friendly way.” A melancholy pause succeeded this sentence.—“It was an ugly business that at Cape Danger, warn’t it, Mister Log?” at last asked the scoundrel of the little man upon the stool.
“Ugly, ugly, very ugly, I may say uncommonly, deplorably, ferociously ugly, Mister Scrumpydike,” replied the captain’s clerk.
“Well, it’s no use lamenting the catastrophe now,” observed the captain. “All we’ve got to do is to get a new ship and a fresh set of hands. The ship we’ve as good as got, but she can be of no use without a crew of the right sort. To get such a set of fellows together will take some time. We must either pick them up where we can, or try and make the present crew adopt our views. This will be rather a ticklish business, and requires very careful management, for the slightest knowledge of our intentions among those not inclined to join us will wreck the whole concern. Now, Scrumpy, you’ve got jawing tackle that will stand in any weather.”
“Ay, ay, cap’ain,” cried the fellow with a grin: “may I be washed to rags in a waterspout if I couldn’t bamboozle the devil’s grandmother.”