"Come, it's all over with us," said McDuff sullenly, "let's go get a drink."
The islander stood long in the sunshine, shading his eyes with his hand, until the steamer was a mere speck out at sea.
"I sho'd like to hab spoken to Captain James," he said to an agent who had come to see him about the men to work on the Canal. "Yes, I sho' feel that he missed somethin'—My name is Bahama Bill."
"Well, well, never mind him now. Let's get down to business. Let's see what we can do with this gang. He'll be back after he has seen his owners and straightened out this affair. He says you acted pretty rough about trying to take his boats and he had to drive you off. He'll be back all right an' you can talk with him—"
"No, he will never come back. No sah. I shall miss dat little talk with him, but—well, as you say, I'll check off the cargo of men, they're all good fellows every one. Come—"
"They're a good gang," said the agent to the engineer of the local work that afternoon; "they're as good a set of men as we'll get. Lazy? Of course they're lazy, did you ever see a black man who wasn't lazy? Fight? No, they're not much on a fight, but I believe there is one fellow, the foreman, a Fortune Islander, who is set upon killing—he has a way of asking after a fellow, the captain of the ship that brought 'em here, that makes me a bit nervous, he's so blamed gentle and insistent about seein' him—but he never will, so what's the difference. I'll turn 'em to in the morning."
The Wrecker