an anchor here for a time,"
repeated the captain.

"Objection! I'll tell ye wot it is, capting, I never seed sich a place
afore in all my born days. Why it's a slice out o' paradise. I do
believe if Adam and Eve wos here they'd think they'd got back again into
Eden. It's more beautifuller than the blue ocean, by a long chalk, an'
if you wants a feller that's handy at a'most anything after a fashion--a
jack of all trades and master of none (except seamanship, which aint o'
no use here)--Jo Bumpus is your man!"

"I'm glad to hear you say that, Jo," said Henry, laughing, "for we are
greatly in need of white men of your stamp in these times, when the
savages are so fierce against each other that they are like to eat us up
altogether, merely by way of keeping their hands in practice."

"_White_ men of my stamp!" remarked Bumpus, surveying complacently his
deeply-bronzed hands, which were only a shade darker than his visage;
"well, I would like to know what ye call black if I'm a white man."

"Blood, and not skin, is what stamps the colour of the man, Jo. If it
were agreeable to Captain Gascoyne to let you off your engagement to
him, I think I could make it worth your while to engage with me, and
would find you plenty of work of all kinds, including a little of that
same fighting for which the Bumpuses are said to be so famous."

"Gentlemen," said Jo, gravely, "I'm agreeable to become a good and
chattel for this occasion only, as the playbills say, and hold myself up
to the highest bidder."

"Nay, you are sold to me, Bumpus," said Gascoyne, "and must do as I bid
you."

"Wery good, then bid away as fast as you like."

"Come, captain, don't be hard," said Henry, "what will you take for
him?"

"I cannot afford to sell him at any price?" replied the other, "for I
have brought him here expressly as a gift to a certain Mary Stuart,
queen of women, if not of Scotland--a widow who dwells in Sandy Cove."

"What, my mother?" interrupted Henry, while a shade of displeasure
crossed his countenance at what he deemed the insolent familiarity with
which Gascoyne mentioned her name.

"The same. On my last visit I promised to get her a man-servant who
could do her some service in keeping off the savages when they take a
fancy to trouble the settlement; and if Bumpus is willing to try his
luck on shore, I promise him he'll find her a good mistress, and her
house pleasant quarters."

"So," exclaimed the stout seaman, stopp