Chapter 46
"Yes--yes."
"Well, then, you'd better finish the business. Tell him I don't want to trade any away. We've got no more than will get in the crops."
"Speak to him," said the other, who seemed to grow more nervous and agitated.
"Oh, very well. Look here, mister; you've come to the wrong shop. I don't understand what you mean by making believe to know me, but I don't know you, and I'm not going to trade in blacks with any British s.h.i.+p.
Understand?"
"Understand, sir?" cried the lieutenant, who was growing scarlet with heat and wrath. "It seems to me that you do not understand. Pray, who are you?"
"Business man and overseer of this plantation for my friend here, Mr James Allen, who trusts me to carry on his affairs for him, being a sick man just getting over a fever. There, I don't want to be surly to an English officer, though I never found one civil to me. You've dropped anchor off here, and I suppose you want water. Well, if you do I'll put a gang of my slaves on to help your men fill their casks."
"I am exceedingly obliged to you, sir," said the lieutenant sarcastically.
"Wal, that's spoke better," said the American. "And if you want some fresh meat and vegetables you can have a boat-load or two if you like to pay for 'em with a chest or so of tea. You'd like a few bottles o' port wine, too, for your complaint, wouldn't you, Allen?" he continued, turning to the pale, nervous man at his side.
"Yes--yes," faltered the poor fellow.
"Really, you are too condescending," cried the lieutenant. "Mr Roberts--Mr Murray--did you ever hear the like of this? Here, May-- t.i.tely--what do you say to this American gentleman?"
Tom May took off his straw hat and gave his curly hair a rake with his fingers, while t.i.tely stared with all his might.
"It caps me, sir," said the latter, while Tom May looked at the American, then at the two middies in turn, and shook his head.
"Well, sir, why don't you speak?" cried his officer angrily.
"'Cause it's such a rum un, sir."
"Bah! Speak out, man, and don't hesitate. You remember seeing this man before?"
"Well, sir, I seem to ha' seen him afore, and then I don't seem, and get kind o' mixed up. Sometimes it looks like him and sometimes it don't look like him, sir. Beg your pardon, sir, but would you mind asking my messmate here--t.i.tely?"
"Bah, man! The sun has made you giddy."
"Well, skipper, when you like I'm ready for an answer. Want the water and fresh vittles?"
"My dear Huggins," said the trembling owner of the place, "it would be far better if you explained to the King's officer--"
"You leave me and the King's officer alone, James Allen," said the American st.u.r.dily.
"But I'm sure--" whispered the planter.
"So'm I. You keep your tongue between your teeth, and I dessay we can settle matters. Look here, Mr Officer, I'm boss of all the business here, and you needn't take no notice of this gentleman. I telled you that Mr Allen has been in bed with fever, and it's left him, as you see, very shaky upon his legs. Your coming has upset him and made him a bit nervous. Here, I'll put in a word for him, poor chap. Jes' you ask your skipper to give him a small bottle o' quinine. You won't want paying for that, being charity."
The lieutenant turned his back upon the speaker angrily, and spoke to
"Look here, sir," he cried, "you are nominally owner of this plantation and the slaves upon it."
"Now, look here, mister," said the American angrily; "I spoke civil to you, and I offered to help you and your s.h.i.+p with what you wanted in the way of fresh meat and vegetables. What's the good of returning stones for stuff?"
"My good fellow, will you be silent," cried the lieutenant, "and let me deal with your master?"
"My master!" snarled the American. "I am my own master, sirr. I tell you I'm boss of all this here show, and if I like to turn nasty--"
"My dear Huggins--" interposed the planter.
"Shut your mouth, you old fool," growled the American, "and don't interfere."
"Why, you insulting scoundrel!" roared the lieutenant. "Here, Mr Allen--that is your name, I believe?--you had better leave this matter in my hands, and I will settle it."
The American stood listening with his eyes half closed and a peculiarly ugly look upon his countenance, while the planter made a deprecating sign with his hands.
"I see very plainly, sir," continued the lieutenant, "that this insolent Yankee is presuming upon your weak state of health and a.s.suming a power that he cannot maintain. You have been placing yourself in a position in which it would be better to--"
"Now see here, stranger," burst in the American, "I'm a man who can stand a deal, but you can go too far. You come swaggering here with a boat-load of your men and think that you're going to frighten me, sirr-- but you're just about wrong, for if I like to call up my men they'd bundle you and your lot back into your boat--for I suppose you have got one."
"Look here, sir," said the lieutenant, as he caught the flas.h.i.+ng eyes of the two middies and the fidgety movements of his men, "I am loth to treat an American with harshness, but take this as a warning; if you insult your master and me again I'll have you put in irons."
"What!" cried the man, with a contemptuous laugh. "You'd better!"
The lieutenant started slightly, and that movement seemed to tighten up the nerves of his men.
"Can't you understand, sirr, that if I like to hold back you'll get no provisions or water here?"
"Confound your supplies, sir! And look here, if I must deal with you let me tell you that I have good reason to believe that under the pretence of acting as a planter here, you are carrying on a regular trade in slaves with the vile chiefs of the West Coast of Africa."
"I don't care what you believe, mister," said the American defiantly.
"I am working this plantation and producing sugar, coffee and cotton-- honest goods, mister, and straightforward merchandise. Who are you, I should like to know, as comes bullying and insulting me about the tools I use for my projuce!"
"You soon shall know, sir," said the lieutenant, and he just glanced at the pale, trembling man, who had sunk into a cane chair, in which he lay back to begin wiping his streaming brow--"I am an officer of his Britannic Majesty's sloop of war _Seafowl_, sent to clear the seas of the miscreants who, worse than murderers, are trading in the wretched prisoners of war who are sold to them by the African chiefs."
"Don't get up too much of it, Mr Officer," said the American, deliberately taking out a very large black cigar from his breast pocket and thrusting it between his lips, before dropping into another cane chair and clapping his hands; "this here ain't a theayter, and you ain't acting. That there's very pretty about his Britannic Majesty's sloop of war. Look here, sirr; bother his Britannic Majesty!"
At these last words a thrill of rage seemed to run through the line of sailors, and they stood waiting for an order which did not come, for the lieutenant only smiled at the American's insolent bravado and waited before interfering with him to hear what more he had to say.
"It sounds very lively and high faluting about your sweeping the high seas of miscreants, as you call 'em, and all that other stuff as you keep on hunting up with African chiefs and such like; but what's that got to do with an invalid English gentleman as invests his money in sugar, coffee and cotton, and what has it to do with his trusted Aymurrican experienced planter as looks after his black farm hands, eh?"
"Only this, sir," said the lieutenant, "that if he or they are proved to be mixed up with this horrible nefarious trade they will be answerable to one of the British courts of law, their mart will be destroyed, and their vessels engaged in the trade will become prizes to his Majesty's cruiser."
"Say, mister," said the American coolly--and then to a s.h.i.+vering black who had come out of the house bearing a coa.r.s.e yellow wax candle which he tried to shelter between his hands, evidently in dread lest it should become extinct,--"Take care, you black cuss, or you'll have it out!"
Murray heard the poor fellow utter a sigh of relief, but he did not even wince, only stood motionless as his tyrant took the wax taper, held it to his cigar till it burned well, and then extinguished it by placing the little wick against the black man's bare arm, before pitching the wax to the man, who caught it and hurried away.
"Say, mister," said the overseer again, "don't you think you fire off a little too much of your Britannic Majesty and your King George fireworks?"
"Go on, sir," said the lieutenant, biting his lip. "Yes, that's what I'm going to do," continued the man coolly. "What's all this here got to do with a free-born Aymurrican citizen?"
"Only this, sir, that your so-called American citizen will have no protection from a great country for such a nefarious transaction."