I felt little like laughing, although the scene of confusion must have been amusing to an uninterested spectator. Had he taken us sooner, the other affair would not have followed.
“I cud ’a’ taken ye, but Hi had to laugh at that conch,” explained Henry. “What d’yer s’pose makes my fingers so big, anyways?”
“Poking them in other people’s business,” said I.
“An’ that’s a fact,” he answered. “Poking them in other people’s business. Man, I was chief garroter in Havana onct, an’ I ’as strangled more men than there is in this ship. Hi ’av’ been a detective an’ a executioner both. That’s how I know how to handle dogs. Save ye, Heywood, d’ye suppose Hawkson would ’a’ let you fellows loose ashore ef he didn’t know Hi’d bring ye back all standin’, as the sayin’ is?”
Henry had never appeared prepossessing to me, and now his statement as to his vocation did little to draw him nearer. On the contrary, he noticed my look of disgust and wonder, as I scanned his huge fingers.
“Never mind,” he said, with a grin, “’tain’t likely they’ll be used on you, though Hi closed ’em onct on the old man’s neck when he was taken fer cuttin’ out them Spanish wood-hunters in the Isle o’ Pines. They let him go just in time. Now they use a screw, for there ain’t been a man there since as c’u’d do the trick wid his fingers,--an’ old Howard insisted that Hi must stick to him for a lucky boy.”
While he talked, I noticed the barque gave a sudden heave of much greater inclination than usual. She seemed to take a new motion, as though a swell from the westward had rolled up against the trade swell. I looked over the side, and noticed a long heave to the sea setting at a sharp angle to the slight rise and fall we had been riding. Henry saw it also, and gazed to the south’ard.
Far away on the horizon a dim haziness seemed forming in the otherwise cloudless sky. I looked aft in time to see Howard come up the companion and gaze around the horizon. Then he said something to Hawkson, who had also appeared, and the old mate came to the break of the poop.
“Take in them royals,” he called to the watch on deck, and the men, who were expecting to hear eight bells struck and dinner announced, had a job. Henry sprang up and went aft.
“T’gallants’ls,” said Hawkson, laconically.