he boatswain.

"I tell you what'd raise drinks pretty quick."

"What would?"

"That loblolly boy would."

"Eh?" said the carpenter. "Go easy, Joe. He may be awake."

"Not he," said the boatswain, carelessly glancing into my hammock, where
I lay like all the Seven Sleepers condensed. "Not he. Snoring young
hound. Do him good to raise drinks for the crowd."

"Eh," said the carpenter, a quieter, more cautious scoundrel than the
other (therefore much more dangerous). "How would a boy like that?" He
left his sentence unfinished.

"Sell him to one of these Dutch East India merchants," said the
boatswain. "There's always one or two of them in the Canal, bound for
Java. A likely young lad like that would fetch twenty pounds from a
Dutch skipper. A white boy would sell for forty in the East. Even if we
only got ten, there'd be pretty drinking while it lasted."

This evidently made an impression on the carpenter, for he did not
answer at once. "Yes," he said presently. "But a lad like that's got
good friends. He don't talk like you or I, Joe."

"Friends in your eye," said the other. "What's a lad with good friends
doing as loblolly boy?"

"Run away," the carpenter said. "Besides, Mr. Jermyn isn't likely to let
the lad loose in Haarlem."

"He might. We could keep a watch," the boatswain answered. "If he goes
ashore, we could tip off Longshore Jack to keep an eye on him. Jack gets
good chances, working the town."

"Yes," said the other. "I mean to put Longshore Jack on to this Mr.
Jermyn. If I aren't foul of the buoy there's money in Mr. Jermyn. More
than in East Indian slaves."

"Oh," the boatswain answered, carelessly, "I don't bother about my
betters, myself. What d'ye think to get from Mr. Jermyn?"

The carpenter made no answer; but lighted his pipe at the lantern,
evidently turning over some scheme in his mind. After that, the talk
ran on other topics, some of which I could not understand. It was mostly
about the Gold Coast, about a place called Whydah, where there was
good trading for negroes, so the boatswain said. He had been there in
a Bristol brig, under Captain Travers, collecting trade, i.e. negro
slaves. At Whydah they had made King Jellybags so drunk with "Samboe"
(whatever Samboe was) that they had carried him off to sea, with his
whole court. "The blacks was mad after," he said, "the next ship's crew
that put in there was all set on the beach. I seed their bones after.
All picked clean. But old Kin