ar see me."

"And a pretty fine fright you gave me too!" said that worthy, bursting
out into another laugh at the recollection. "It was the next mornin',
as I went down into the sail room under the forepeak, to fetch up a
spare tops'le, when I comes across my joker here. I caught hold at
first of his frizzy head, thinking it were a mop one of the hands had
forgotten below; but when I turned my lantern there I seed Sam, who I
thought miles astern, safe and snug in old Davy Jones' locker. Lord!
shipmates, you could ha' knocked me down with a feather and club-hauled
me for a nincompoop!"

"Wer ye ez frit ez I wer jest now?" asked Hiram quizzingly. "Mind,
quite ez much ez I wer?"

"Ay, bo," replied Tom, "I dessay I were, if the truth be told."

This pleased Hiram immensely.

"Then, I guess I don't see whaar yer crow comes in, my joker!" he
exclaimed, giving Tom a similar thump on the back to that which he had a
short time before bestowed on Sam--a slight token of affection by no
means to be sneezed at. "Why, ye wer cacklin' like a durned old hen
with one egg, 'bout Cholly an' I bein' frit jest now, thinkin' we seed
Sam's ghostess, when hyar, ye sez now, ye wer frit yerself the same at
the fust sight ye seed of him!"

"Ay, bo; but I wern't going to tell you that, nor 'bout another fright I
next had, when the darkey and I were a-smoking down in the forepeak and
nearly set the ship a-fire," said Tom knowingly, with a shrewd,
expressive wink to each of us respectively in turn, before he resumed
his story. "But, to go on properly with my yarn from the beginning,
when I found Sam's head wasn't a mop, but belonged to his real darkey
self, and that he wasn't drownded after all, why, I made him as snug as
I could down below, thinking it were best for him to keep hid, for if
the skipper saw him on dock and knew he were alive he would soon be
shooting him again, or else ill-treating him in the way he had already
done. Sam agreed to act by my advice on my promising to take him down
grub and all he might want into the forepeak; but, bless you, the
contrary darkey wouldn't act up to this arrangement arter a day or two."

"Dat was 'cause yer hab forget to bring de grub," interposed Sam, to
explain this apparent breach of contract on his part. "I'se cook, an'
not used fo' ter go widout my vittles fo' nobody!"

"How could I get below to you when we had bad weather and the hatches
were battened down?" retorted Tom Bullover,