“Stay,” said Antonio, who was refined in his cruelty; “let them have the pleasure of seeing their captain hang first, since they are so fond of him. He well knows what their fate will be, and perhaps he would rather they went overboard than joined us.”
“Do as you like, but let it be done quickly,” answered Daggerfeldt. “I’m sick of this work, and we must be preparing to get out of the river, or their friends will be sending in here to look for us.”
Hopkins and Short did not understand a word of this conversation, and finding themselves brought close up to where their captain stood engaged in his devotions, and preparing like a brave man for inevitable death, they believed that they were to share his fate.
“Well, I’m blowed if that ain’t more than I expected of the beggars,” whispered Jack Hopkins to his companion; “they’re going to do the thing that’s right after all, and launch us in our last cruise in the same way as the captain.”
“Jack, can you pray?” asked Bob Short.
“Why, for the matter of that I was never much of a hand at it,” answered Jack; “but when I was a youngster I was taught to thank God for all his mercies, and I do so still. Why do you ask?”
“I was thinking as how as the skipper is taking a spell at it, whether we might ask him just to put in a word for us. He knows more about it, and a captain of a man-of-war must have a greater chance of being attended to than one of us, you see, Jack.”
Poor Bob could never thus have exerted himself had he not felt that he should only have a few words more to speak in this life. Jack looked at him in surprise.
“I’ll ask him, Bob, I’ll ask him; but you know as how the parson says, in the country we are going to all men are equal, and so I suppose we ought to pray for ourselves.”
“But we are still in this world, Jack,” argued the other; “Captain Staunton is still our captain, and we are before the mast.”