Part 46 (2/2)

”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.”

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