Jack. "'Tis the house of the second
overseer of this 'ere plantation, and much good may it do you to
know it."

Having thus broken the ice, I succeeded, before I had finished my
meal, in drawing sundry other information out of them. I learned
that the place of my imprisonment was some two miles from Mistress
Lucy's house, being situate at the extreme verge of the sugar
plantation. The men knew nothing about Mistress Lucy, or of what
went on at the house, having recently been brought up by Vetch,
along with a dozen or more shipmates, from a brig belonging to
their employer that now lay in a cove on the north of the island
some ten miles away. They made no bones about acknowledging that
they had formed part of the crew of a buccaneer vessel and had been
hired by Vetch for a month's service on shore, which suited them
very well, since they had nothing to do, good pay, and were given a
liberal allowance of bumbo, which was, I discovered, a concoction
of rum and water, sugar and nutmeg.

"Well, now," says I, thinking the time had come for my proposal, "I
don't ask you what pay you are getting, but whatever it is, I will
double it if you'll let me loose, and help me to get down to
Spanish Town."

"Come up, now!" says Bill, "d'ye think to gammon us? We know what a
lieutenant's wages is, we do, and 'twould take a dozen of you
together to pay us enough for that there job."

"And you shall have it," I said.

"Ay, and a dose of irons into the bargain," said the man. "No, no;
we don't want no lobsters up from Spanish Town; not if we know it.

"Besides, we knows what king's officers be, don't we, Jack?

"We've bin on king's ships, Lord love you, and we knows where the
pay goes to. Once you get to Spanish Town you'd forget all about
us; we've bin done like that afore."

And then what must I do but produce a handful of silver and show it
them as earnest of my promise. I could not have done a stupider
thing. At the sight of the money the men fell upon me, and emptied
my pocket (despite my resistance) of every stiver it contained; so
that I was now, as once before in my life, bare of everything save
my clothes and Cludde's crown piece, which was hidden under my
shirt. Then, with many a chuckle, the scoundrels left me, to
meditate on the exceeding folly of trying to make terms with
buccaneers.

So three days passed. I was never allowed to quit my room; Jack and
Bill guarded it by day, two other men by night. I became more a