Page:The Iron Pirate 1905.djvu/228

214 the Scotsman known as Dick the Ranter, and myself. The Scotsman alone displayed signs of that rollicking spirit of dare-devil which had characterised the meeting in Paris; but the captain soon silenced him.

"D'ye ken that we've no said grace?" remarked the lantern-jawed fellow, as we sat to table; and then, raising his hands in impudent mockery, he began to utter some blasphemy, but Black turned upon him as with the growl of a wild beast.

"To the devil with that," said he. "Hold your tongue, man!"

The Scotsman looked up at the rebuke as though a thunderbolt had hit him.

"Verra weel, mon; Verra weel," he muttered; "but ye're unco melancholy the nicht, unco melancholy." And then he fell to the silence of consumption, eating prodigiously of all that was set before him; but in high dudgeon, as a man rebuked unworthily. Of the others, the doctor alone talked, chatting fluently of many European cities, and proving himself no mean raconteur. I listened in the hope of getting some idea of what was intended in my case; also, if that could be, of the situation of this strange place in which I found myself; for as yet I knew not if it were to the North of America; or, indeed, in what part of the Arctic Sea it might be. To my satisfaction the captain made no attempt to conceal the