yawl, with four oars, and came round the Hook just a'ter you had got
the brig's head round to the eastward. You must have seen it, I
should think, though it kept close in with the wharves, as if it
wished to be snug."

"Then the gentleman, as you call him, expected that very boat to
come and take him off?"

"I suppose so, sir, because it did come and take him off. That's all
I knows about it."

"Had you no jaw with the gentleman? You was n't mnm the whole time
you was in the boat with him?"

"Not a bit of it, sir. Silence and I does n't agree together long,
and so we talked most of the time."

"And what did the stranger say of the brig?"

"Lord, sir, he catechised me like as if I had been a child at
Sunday-school. He asked me how long I had sailed in her; what ports
we'd visited, and what trade we'd been in. You can't think the sight
of questions he put, and how cur'ous he was for the answers."

"And what did you tell him in your answers? You said nothin' about
our call down on the Spanish Main, the time you were left ashore, I
hope, Jack?"

"Not I, sir. I played him off surprisin'ly. He got nothin' to count
upon out of me. Though I do owe the Molly Swash a grudge, I'm not