I would have enjoyed hearing the details, but he declared this would take much time.
“You see, I’ve had the very old deuce of a time since getting ashore, and there’s a lot to tell that can keep. We want to act now,” he said.
“Right, Robbins—act is the word. But I’m in a poor way to assist,” I declared.
“How so—not wounded, I hope?”
I hastened to assure the honest fellow I was in the pink of condition, which perhaps was hardly the truth, but that my anxiety arose from the lack of proper weapons, such as a man usually delights in when preparing to defy a whole city.
“Then let that trouble you no more,” said he, pressing some things into my eager hands.
“Why, hello! This is the gun I saw in the belt of Cerberus! What have you done with my gentle, humorous jailor, Robbins?”
“If you mean that clumsy rascal with the shock of black hair, I’ve used a whole cable of hempen rope to tie him fast, and stretched his jaws as far as they would go to accommodate a neat little gag. Oh! he’s all right, Morgan; don’t worry about him,” was the cheerful reply the mate gave.
My admiration for the man grew more intense.
He was unquestionably a “hummer,” to use one of his own expressive phrases, or what the cowboys of the plains call a “hustler.”