handed him a bottle.

One sniff at the neck of the bottle was enough to satisfy Christy, who
was a practical temperance man of the very strictest kind, and he had
never drank a glass of anything intoxicating in all his life. The bottle
contained "apple-jack," or apple-brandy, the vilest fluid that ever
passed a tippler's gullet. He felt obliged to keep up his character,
taken for the occasion, and he retained the mouth of the bottle at his
lips long enough to answer the requirement of the moment; but he did not
open them, or permit a drop of the nauseous and fiery liquor to pollute
his tongue. It was necessary for him to consider that he was struggling
for the salvation of his beloved country to enable him even to go
through the form of "taking a drink."

Graines was less scrupulous on the question of temperance, and he took a
swallow of the apple-jack; but that was enough for him, for he had never
tasted anything outside of the medicine-chest which was half as noxious.
If he had been compelled to keep up the drinking, he would have realized
that his punishment was more than he could bear. Fortunately the
tipplers had no tumblers, so that the guests were not compelled to pour
out the fluid and drink it off. All drank directly from the bottles,
so that the two officers could easily conceal in the semi-darkness the
extent of their indulgence.

"Who be you, strangers?" asked the man who had acted thus far as
spokesman of the party.

"My name is Tom Bulger, born and brought up in the island of Great
Abaco, and this feller is my friend and shipmate, Sam Riley," replied
Christy, twisting and torturing his speech as much as was necessary.