There was certainly nothing sufficiently imposing about the persons of
either of these individuals to repel the investigations of one as much
influenced by curiosity as our tailor. Instead, however, of yielding
directly to the strong impulse, the honest shaper of cloth chose to
conduct his advance in a manner that should afford to the bumpkin a
striking proof of his boasted sagacity. After making a sign of caution and
intelligence to the latter, he approached slowly from behind, with a light
step, that might give him an opportunity of overhearing any secret that
should unwittingly fall from either of the seamen. His forethought was
followed by no very important results, though it served to supply his
suspicions with all the additional testimony of the treachery of their
characters that could be furnished by evidence so simple as the mere sound
of their voices. As to the words themselves, though the good-man they
might well contain treason, he was compelled to acknowledge to himself
that it was so artfully concealed as to escape even his acute capacity We
leave the reader himself to judge of the correctness of both opinions.

"This is a pretty bight of a basin, Guinea," observed the white, rolling
his tobacco in his mouth and turning his eyes, for the first time in many
minutes, from the vessel; "and a spot is it that a man, who lay on a
lee-shore without sticks, might be glad to see his craft in. Now do I call
myself something of a seaman, and yet I cannot weather upon the philosophy
of that fellow, in keeping his ship in the outer harbour, when he might
warp her into this mill-pond in half an hour. It gives his boats hard
duty, dusky S'ip; and that I call making foul weather of fair!"

The negro had been christened Scipio Africanus, by a species of witticism
which was much more common to the Provinces than it is to the States of
America, and which filled so many of the meaner employments of the