The next morning had been fixed for duck--shooting, and the overseer and I
were creeping along amongst the mangrove bushes on the shore, to get a
shot at some teal, when we saw our friend the pair of compasses crossing
the small bay in his boat, towards his little pilotboat--built schooner,
which was moored in a small creek opposite, the brushwood concealing every
thing but her masts. My companion, as wild an Irishman as I ever knew,
hailed him,--
"Hillo, Obadiah--Buckskin--you Yankee rascal, heave--to. Come ashore
here--come ashore."
Obed, smoking his pipe, deliberately uncoiled himself--I thou as he rose,
there was to be no end of him--and stood upright in the boat, like an
ill--rigged jurymast.
"I say, Master Tummas, you ben't no friend of mine, I guess, a'ter last
night's work; you hears how I coughs?"--and he began to wheezle and crow
in a most remarkable fashion.
"Never mind," rejoined the overseer; "if you go round that point, and put
up the ducks--by the piper, but I'll fire at you!"
Obed neighed like a horse expecting his oats, which was meant as a laugh
of derision. "Do you think your birding--piece can touch me here away,
Master Tummas?" And again he nichered more loudly than before.
"Don't provoke me to try, you yellow snake, you!"
"Try, and be d--d, and there's a mark for thee," unveiling a certain part
of his body, not his face.
The overseer, or bushes, to give him his Jamaica name, looked at me and
smiled, then coolly lifted his long Spanish barrel, and fired.
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