Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/262

 the brigantine a portion of her boltsprit and two of her smartest hands. The chest containing these articles had been started in unloading, so that its contents had sustained much damage from sea-water. It was a breadth of stained satin out of this very consignment that the Creole storekeeper now endeavoured to persuade Célandine she would do well to purchase at an exorbitant valuation.

Slap-Jack, like many of his calling, had picked up a smattering of negro-French, and could understand the subject of dispute sufficiently to interfere, a course from which he was not to be dissuaded by his less impressionable companions.

"Let her be!" growled Smoke-Jack. "Wot call have you now to come athwart-hawse of that there jabbering mounseer, as a man might say, dredging in his own fishing-ground? It's no use hailing her, I tell ye, mate, I knows the trim on 'em; maybe she'll lay her foresail aback, and stand off-and-on till sun-down, then just when a man least expects it, she'll up stick, shake out every rag of canvas, and run for port. Bless ye, young and old, fair and foul, black, white, and coloured, nigger, quadroon, and mustee—I knows 'em all, and not one on 'em but carries a weather-helm in a fresh breeze, and steers wild and wilful in a sea-way."

But Slap-Jack was not to be diverted from his purpose. With considerable impudence, and an impressive sea-bow, he walked up to Célandine under the eyes of his admiring shipmates, and, mustering the best negro-French at his command, warned her in somewhat incomprehensibe jargon of the imposition intended to be practised. Now it happened that Port Welcome, and the island in which it was situated, had been occupied in its varying fortunes by French, Spaniards, and English so equally, that these languages, much corrupted by negro pronunciation, were spoken indiscriminately, and often altogether. It was a great relief, therefore, to Slap-Jack that Célandine thanked him politely for his interposition in his native tongue, and when she looked into the young foretopman's comely brown face, she found herself so fascinated with something she detected there as to continue the conversation in tolerably