“I wish,” said another rover, “we could rather persuade them to mend our fare a little. Nothing but river fish—one worse than another, and the best not fit for a nigger’s banyan day. I fancy we’ll fare still worse; the vessel gone, and not a chance of getting another! What the devil could have brought us here? Toiling at the oars for a hundred miles up a river, where nothing could be met with but timber rafting down the stream. Pish! a pretty way to lose a schooner. I say, what drove us here?”
“Silence!” said the captain; “and I’ll tell you.”
“I wish you would,” returned the other, in a mutinous tone.
“Revenge!” was the stern reply; “revenge and plunder!”
“Revenge sounds well enough,” returned the former speaker, “and plunder better still. But on whom have we any cause of vengeance, fifty leagues from ocean? ‘Who are we to find here, among mango trees and cockatoos? And as to plunder, there’s nothing to be picked up but drift wood; and there’s a chance—-a raft floating down the river, and only a brace of niggers guarding it!” and the fellow laughed in derision.
“Peace,” roared the captain, sternly. “Pass the runlet; and at its third round, I’ll tell you why we came.”
“Is Dutch courage required to-night, captain, that we must be drunk, or half-seas over, before you tell us what brought us here?”
“By Heaven! Juan, you will drive me further than I wish,” and the captain laid his hand upon a pistol.
“Hold! hold!” exclaimed half-a-dozen voices; “no more of that to-night. No use in mincing matters; the schooner’s sunk, and what are we to do?—keep here, and rob fishing canoes, as we did to-night, to furnish out a rascally existence? or seek the bush at once, and band ourselves with nigger runaways? Captain, it won’t do.”
“Hear me, men,” exclaimed the captain, passionately. “‘Tis true the vessel’s gone: well, that’s no fault of mine; but for the plan—revenge and plunder. Don’t they sound well together?”