"You see all that?' said Obed.
"To be sure I do, and I feel something too'; for a sharp rasping jar was
repeated in rapid succession three or four times, as so many shot struck
our hull, and made the splinters glance about merrily; and the musketballs
were mottling our top sides and spars, plumping into the timber, whit whit!
as thick as ever you saw schoolboys' plastering a church door with
clay--pellets. There was a heavy groan, and a stir amongst the seamen in
the run.
"And, pray, do you see and hear all that yourself, Master Obed? The iron
has clenched some of your chaps down there.--Stay a bit, you shall have a
better dose presently, you obstinate old"--
He waved his hand, and interrupted me with great energy--"I dare not give
in, I cannot give in; all I have in the world swims in the little hooker,
and strike I will not so long as two planks stick together.
"Then," quoth I, "you are simply a damned, cold--blooded, calculating
scoundrel--brave I will never call you." I saw he was now stung to the
quick.
"Lieutenant, smuggler as I am, don't goad me to what worse I may have been;
there are some deeds done in my time, which at a moment like this I don't
much like to think upon. I am a desperate man, Master Cringle; don't, for
your own sake, as well as mine, try me too far.'
"Well but"--persisted I. He would hear nothing.
"Enough said, sir, enough said; there was not an honester trader nor a
happier man in all the Union, until your infernal pillaging an burning
squadron in the Chesapeake captured and ruined me; but I paid it off on the
prize--master, although we were driven on the rocks after all.
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