t, and I'll mix the
punch," he said, setting over the fire a tea-kettle which they brought
from the ship.

After their preparations were finished, all sat down to eat and drink.
Mara listened with anxiety and horror to a conversation such as she
never heard or conceived before. It is not often that women hear men
talk in the undisguised manner which they use among themselves; but the
conversation of men of unprincipled lives, and low, brutal habits,
unchecked by the presence of respectable female society, might well
convey to the horror-struck child a feeling as if she were listening at
the mouth of hell. Almost every word was preceded or emphasized by an
oath; and what struck with a death chill to her heart was, that Moses
swore too, and seemed to show that desperate anxiety to seem _au fait_
in the language of wickedness, which boys often do at that age, when
they fancy that to be ignorant of vice is a mark of disgraceful
greenness. Moses evidently was bent on showing that he was not
green,--ignorant of the pure ear to which every such word came like the
blast of death.

He drank a great deal, too, and the mirth among them grew furious and
terrific. Mara, horrified and shocked as she was, did not, however, lose
that intense and alert presence of mind, natural to persons in whom
there is moral strength, however delicate be their physical frame. She
felt at once that these men were playing upon Moses; that they had an
object in view; that they were flattering and cajoling him, and leading
him to drink, that they might work out some fiendish purpose of their
own. The man called Atkinson related story after story of wild
adventure, in which sudden fortunes had been made by men who, he said,
were not afraid to take "the short cut across lots." He told of
piratical adventures in the West Indies,--of the fun of chasing and
overhauling ships,--and gave dazzling accounts of the treasures found on
board. It was observable that all these stories were told on the line
between joke and earnest,--as frolics, as specimens of good fun, and
seeing life, etc.

At last came a suggestion,--What if they should start off together some
fine day, "just for a spree," and try a cruise in the West Indies, to
see what they could pick up? They had arms, and a gang of fine,
whole-souled fellows. Moses had been tied to Ma'am Pennel's apron-string
long enough. And "hark ye," said one of them, "Moses, they say old
Pennel has lots of dollars in th