"But," continued I, "we must act with judgment. What we have we must keep. Are the negroes trustworthy men?"
"Yes, they are honest fellows. I wouldn't have shipped with them else."
"We shall not require much for ourselves," said I, "and the rest we'll batten down and keep snug. There'll be some man[oe]uvring needed in order to come off clear with this booty when we arrive: but there's plenty of time to think that over, and our business till then is to look after the ship and pray for luck to keep clear of anything hostile."
And then we fell to other talk; in the course of which he told me he was an Englishman born, but having been pressed into a man-o-war, deserted her at Halifax and made several voyages in American ships. He was wrecked on the Peruvian coast and became a beachcomber, and then got a berth in a whaler. He married at New Bedford and sailed with Captain Tucker—this was his second whaling trip, he said, and he wanted no more. I told him I was glad to learn that he was a countryman of mine, but not surprised. His speech was well-larded with americanisms, "but," said I, "the true twang is wanting, and," added I, laughing, "I should know you for Hampshire for all your reckons and guesses if I had to eat you should I be mistaken."
"The press-gang's the best friend the Yankees has," said he a little sheepishly. "Do any man suppose I hadn't sooner hail from my native town Southampton than from New Bedford? Half the American foksles is made up of Yankees who'd prove hearts of oak if it wasn't for the press."
His candour gratified me as showing that he already looked upon me as a shipmate to be trusted, and, as I have said, this first chat with the man left me strongly disposed to consider myself fortunate in having him as an associate.
CHAPTER XXIX.
I VALUE THE LADING.
The day had been so full of business, there had been so much to engage my mind, that it was not until I was seated at supper in the old cook-room in which I had passed so many melancholy hours, that I found myself able to take a calm survey of my situation, and to compare the various motions of my fortunes. I could scarcely indeed believe that I was not in a dream from which I should awake presently, and discover myself still securely imprisoned in the ice, and all those passages of the powder-blasts, the liberation of the schooner, my lonely days in her afloat, my encounter with the whaler, as visionary and vanishing as those dusky forms of vapour which had swarmed in giant-shape over my little open boat.