an Steenbock, in reply to this,
the men on the other side of the captain giving a murmuring assent to
the accusation, "you vas shoot him ze first!"

"Aye, thet's so; but I didn't mean fur to hit him, only to skear him.
Guess I don't think I did, fur the ship rolled as I fired, an' the
bullet must hev gone over his woolly head, an' he let go from sheer
frit!"

"Dat might be," answered the second-mate, whom the men left to do all
the talking; "but ze--"

"Besides," continued the captain, interrupting him, and seeing he had
gained a point, "the darkey pizened my grub. He sea he put jalap in it.
Ye heerd him say so y'rselves, didn't ye?"

"Aye, aye," chorussed the group of men in front of him, with true
sailor's justice, "we did. We heard him say so."

"Well, then," argued Captain Snaggs, triumphantly, "ye knows what a
delicate matter it is fur to meddle with a chap's grub; ye wouldn't like
it y'rselves?"

"No," came from the men unanimously, "we wouldn't."

"All right, then; I see ye're with me," said the skipper, wagging his
beard about as he lay down the law. "I confess I didn't like it. The
nigger sed he hocussed our grub; but seeing ez how I an' the first-mate
wer took so bad, I believed he'd pizened us, an' it rizzed my dander,
an' so I went fur him."

"Aye, aye," sang out the men, as if endorsing this free and rather
one-sided version of the affair, Hiram Bangs the captain's countryman,
chiming in with a "Right you air, boss!"

"But you need not have shoot hims," insisted Jan Steenbock, perceiving
that the skipper was getting the men to take a more lenient view of the
transaction than he did. "Ze mans not go avays. You could put hims in
ze irons!"

"So I could, me joker; though I can't see ez how it's yer place to top
the officer over me, Mister Steenbock," retorted the skipper, with some
of his old heat. "Ye've hed yer say, an' the men hev hed their'n; an'
now I'll hev mine, I reckon! The nigger wer in fault in the fust place,
an' I'm sorry I wer tew hard on him; but, now he's gone overboard,
thaar's nuthin' more to be done, fur all the talkin' in the world won't
bring him back agen! I'll tell ye what I'll do, though."

"What?" shouted out Tom Bullover. "What will you do?"

Captain Snaggs recognised his voice now, in spite of its being nearly
dark, and he uttered an expressive sort of snorting grunt.

"Ha! ye're the coon, are ye, thet cried murder, hey?" I heard him
mutter under his breat