"What's that for?" cries out Salem Dick.
"What for, my jumping beau?
Why, to give the lubbers one more kick!"
Yo ho, with the rum below.
Thus rang the voice, and there ambled into view Joe Punchard,
perched upon a mule, and on mules behind him two negroes, their
countenances shining, their teeth flashing, with a happy smile.
"Joe!" I cried, in defiance of all caution.
"Ahoy ho!" he cried in return, pulling up his mule. "Who be that
a-calling of Joe?"
I broke away from Cludde's detaining arm, and ran to my old friend.
"Ahoy ho!" he shouted jovially when he saw me; but when I put my
fingers to my lips he dismounted clumsily, and met me with the
whispered question, "What be in the wind, Master Bold?"
I could not have taken ten minutes to possess him with the
necessary facts, so rapidly did I tell the gist of my story.
"Bless my buttons!" he ejaculated, "I reckoned there was somewhat
amiss. When I heard talk of you being ill, I was most desperate
uneasy, knowing you was in the latitude o' Vetch. And I said so to
my captain, and begged him to let me fetch a course this way to
make sure as you weren't run aground or wrecked on a sunken reef.
My captain he laughs and says you'd steered clear so often that
he'd no fears of you not coming safe to port; but seeing I was set
on it, he give me leave, and to make things reg'lar, as he said, he
told me being in these parts to keep an eye lifting for the
buccaneers as are said to be somewheres on this coast.
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