was almost
afraid the captain would hear away aft on the poop.

"Hoo-hoo! Yah-yah!" he laughed, with all that hearty abandon of his
race, bending his body and slapping his hands to his shins, as if to
hold himself up. "Golly! me nebber fought ob dat afore! Hoo-hoo!
Yah-yah! I'se most ready to die wid laffin! Hoo-hoo!"

"Why, Sam," I cried, "what's the matter now?"

"Hoo-hoo! Cholly," he at last managed to get out between his convulsive
fits of laughter. "Yer jess wait till cap'n want um grub; an' den--
hoo-hoo!--yer see one fine joke! My gosh! Cholly, I'se one big fool
not tink ob dat afore! Guess it'll do prime. Yah-yah! Won't de `ole
man' squirm! Hoo-hoo!"

"Oh, Sam!" I exclaimed, a horrid thought occurring to me all at once.
"You wouldn't poison him?"

The little negro drew himself up with a native sort of dignity, that
made him appear quite tall.

"I'se hab black 'kin, an no white like yer's, Cholly," said he gravely,
wiping away the tears that had run down his cheeks in the exuberance of
his recent merriment. "But, b'y, yer may beleeb de troot, dat if I'se
hab black 'kin, my hart ain't ob dat colour; an' I wouldn't pizen no
man, if he wer de debbel hisself. No, Cholly, I'se fight fair, an'
dunno wish to go behint no man's back!"

"I'm sure I beg your pardon," said I, seeing that I had insulted him by
my suspicion; "but what are you going to do to pay the skipper out?"

This set him off again with a fresh paroxysm of laughter.

"My golly! Hoo-hoo! I'se goin' hab one fine joke," he spluttered out,
his face seemingly all mouth, and his woolly hair crinkling, as if
electrified by his inward feelings. "I'se goin'--hoo-hoo!--I'se goin'--
yah-yah!--"

But, what he was about to tell me remained for the present a mystery;
for, just then, the squalls ceasing and the wind shifting to the
northward of west, the captain ordered the lee braces to be slacked off,
and we hauled round more to starboard, still keeping on the same tack,
though. Our course now was pretty nearly south-west by south, and thus,
instead of barely just weathering the Smalls, as we should only have
been able to do if it had kept on blowing from the same quarter right in
our teeth, we managed to give the Pembrokeshire coast a good wide berth,
keeping into the open seaway right across the entrance to the Bristol
Channel, the ship heading towards Scilly well out from the land.

She made better weather, too, not rolling or pitch