"Splutter and oons!" cried the man, interrupting me, "who be you
a-calling swab, I'd like to know!"

"No offense," I said, "I was just going to tell you of the fun we
had, my mates and I, when we were prisoners in France, and how we
escaped and had a running fight with Duguay-Trouin--"

"That's a good un!" he cried.

"Hark to him, Jack: says he had a fight with Doggy Trang."

"Let's hear about it," cries the man he had called Jack.

Whereupon I launched out into the story of our escape, made them
laugh heartily by my description of our dealings with the French
captain, and so brought them, as I thought, to a more reasonable
temper.

"And now, seeing that we're in a manner shipmates, you won't refuse
to answer a simple question, I'm sure," I said. "What house is
this?"

"No harm in that, Bill," says Jack. "'Tis the house of the second
overseer of this 'ere plantation, and much good may it do you to
know it."

Having thus broken the ice, I succeeded, before I had finished my
meal, in drawing sundry other information out of them. I learned
that the place of my imprisonment was some two miles from Mistress