Page:The Iron Pirate 1905.djvu/293

Rh black, oleaginous matter; two of the others had their faces smeared in tar; the rest were like drowned rats, and were chattering until their teeth clashed with the cold. Nor could they for some time, what with their spluttering and their anger, tell us what misfortune had overtaken them.

"The darned empty skunks" gasped John at last—"they haven't got a barrel aboard, not a barrel, I guess; and when I gave 'em play with my tongue, they put me in the waste-tub—oh, I reckon, up to my eyes in it——"

"Do you mean to say," asked Black, "that they've took no whales?"

"Except ourselves, yer honour," said a little Englishman, who was cowering like a drowned rat, "which they throw'd overboard, like the whales in the Scriptures, never a fish."

"Then we've wasted our time!" cried the skipper, stamping his great foot "and you're lazy varmin to stop so long aboard parleying with 'em. I'm going on; you can settle your scores among you."

He gave the order "Full steam ahead!" at which the third officer showed the temper of a whipped beast.

"You're going ahead leaving them swimming? Then darn me if I serve," said he. "What? They pitch me in their dirty tub, and you laugh! By thunder! I'll teach you."

Captain Black watched his anger with a