I had turned into my berth, after keeping the morning watch some days after this, when, as I awoke, I saw Tom Rockets moving about in the cabin.
“What do you want, Tom?” I asked.
“Hist, sir,” he whispered, “I’ve just a word to speak to you.”
“Out with it then, my man,” I said.
“It’s just about that strange skipper, sir.”
“Well, go on.”
“He’s been talking to me, and asking if I wouldn’t like to go and settle in a land of liberty, and make my fortune, and no longer be subject to be starved and flogged and ill-treated on board of a man-of-war?”
“And what did you say, Tom?” I asked.
“I told him just simply like that I belonged to you, that I would follow wheresoever you went, and that if you thought fit to go and settle in his country, I’d have no objection to go too.”
“That was right, Tom. If he speaks to you again, give him the same sort of answer. Don’t let him suppose you are offended. Has he spoken with either of the other men?”