"Sure by rights she should be gaoler and hold all men's hearts in ward," said Paradise, with a low bow to my unfortunate captive.
While he spoke a most remarkable transformation was going on. The minister's grave, rugged, and deeply lined face smoothed itself and shed ten years at least; in the eyes that I had seen wet with noble tears a laughing devil now lurked, while his strong mouth became a loose-lipped, devil-may-care one. His head with its aureole of bushy, grizzled hair set itself jauntily upon one side, and from it and from his face and his whole great frame breathed a wicked jollity quite indescribable.
"Odsbodikins, captain!" he cried. "Kirby's luck!—'twill pass into a saw! Adzooks! and so you're captain once more, and I'm mate once more, and we've a ship once more, and we're off once more
To sail the Spanish Main,
And give the Spaniard pain,
Heave ho, bully boy, heave ho!
By 'r lakin! I'm too dry to sing. It will take all the wine of Xeres in the next galleon to unparch my tongue!"
NOTES
the grave:—This refers to the latter part of chapter 21 of To Have and to Hold; the hero, Ralph Percy, who has been shipwrecked with his companions, discovers a group of pirates burying their dead captain.
pezos and pieces of eight:—peso is the Spanish word for dollar; pieces of eight are dollars also, each dollar containing eight reals.
the man in black and silver:—Paradise, an Englishman.
frails:—Baskets made of rushes.