yet without venturing to glance in that direction, until a sharp challenge of the vigilant sentinel warned us to sheer off.
Slowly shipping the heavy steering oar, finding it difficult even in that moment of suspense to suppress a smile at the expression of terror on Alphonse's black face, I stood up, awed by the solemn massiveness of the vast bulk towering above me, now barely thirty feet away. For the first time I realized fully the desperation of my task, and my heart sank. But the gesticulations of the wrathful guard could no longer be ignored, and, smothering an exclamation of disgust at my momentary weakness, I nerved myself for the play.
"Caramba!" the fellow shouted roughly in his native tongue. "Stop there, you lazy niggers; don't let that boat drift any closer. Come, sheer off, or, by all the saints, I 'll blow a hole clear through the black hide of one of you!"
"Hold her back, boy!" I muttered hurriedly to the willing slave. "That soldier means to shoot."
Then I held up a handful of our choicest fruit into view.
"I have got plenty vegetables, an' lot fruit fer sell," I shouted eagerly in negro French, putting all the volume possible into my voice, hopeful my words might penetrate the hidden deck above. "Plenty 'tatoes, peaches, olibs—eberyting fer de oppercers."
"Don't want them—pull away, and be lively about it."
It was a moment of despair, every hope suspended in the balance; my heart beating like a trip-hammer with suspense. The thoroughly enraged guard lifted his gun to the shoulder; there was threat in his eyes, yet I ventured a desperate chance of one more word.
"I got de only olibs on dis ribber."
"Bastenade!" yelled the infuriated fellow. "I 'll give you a shot to pay for your insolence."
Even as he spoke, fumbling the lock of his gun, that same head observed before suddenly popped over the high rail like Punch at a pantomime.
"Vat zat you say, nigger?" its owner cried doubtingly. "Vas it ze olif you haf zare in ze leetle boat?"
I eagerly held up into view a choice handful of green fruit, my eyes hopeful.
"Oui, Señor Oppercer—fresh olibs; same as ob your lan'."
The Spaniard was standing upright on the rail by this time, clinging fast to a rope dangling from above, leaning far over, no slight interest depicted upon his pinched, sallow countenance.
"It's all right, sentry," he said sharply to the soldier, who lowered his gun with a scowl indicating his real desire. My newly found friend lifted his squeaking voice again in unfamiliar speech.
"Bring ze leetle boat along ze side of ze sheep, you black fellar, an' come up here wiz ze olif fer ze Capitaine."
"Scull in close against those steps, Alphonse," I muttered, overjoyed at this rare stroke of good fortune. "Then pull out a few strokes; but stay alongside until I come back. Don't let any one get aboard, and keep a quiet tongue yourself."
The whites of his eyes alone answered me, he being too badly frightened for speech. The situation was one to grate upon any nerves unaccustomed to danger, yet, trusting the long training of the slave would hold him obedient, I turned away, and, in another moment, had scrambled up the rope ladder, plunging awkwardly over the high rail on to the hitherto concealed deck. My pulses throbbed with excitement over the desperate game fronting me, yet, with a coolness surprising to myself, I lost at that instant every sensation of personal fear, in determination to act thoroughly my assumed character. More lives than one hung in the balance, and, with tightly clenched teeth, I swore to prove equal to the venture. The very touch of those deck planks to my bare feet put new recklessness into my blood, causing me to marvel at the perfection of my own fool play.
The gaunt Spaniard commanding my presence stood waiting, hardly more than five paces from where I landed, yet so intense became my immediate interest in the strange scene—an interest partly real, but largely simulated for the occasion—that he contented himself watching my confused antics with much apparent amusement, and without addressing me. Even to this hour that scene lies distinct before my eyes. Possessed I skill with pencil I could sketch each small detail from the retina of memory—the solitary sentinel beside the rail, his well-worn uniform of blue and white dingy in the sun; another farther forward, where a great opening yawned; with yet a third, standing rigid before a closed door of the after cabin. An officer, his coat richly decorated with gold braid, wearing epaulets, and having a short sword dangling at his side, paced back and forth across the top of a little house near the stern. I heard him utter some command to a sailor near the wheel, but he never so much as glanced toward me. Perhaps thirty or more seamen, bronzed of face, and oddly bedecked as to hair, lounged idly amid the shadows opposite, while, more closely at hand, that gaunt, cadaverous Spaniard, at whose invitation I was present, leaned against a big gun, puffing nonchalantly at a cigarette, held between lean, saffron-colored fingers. The deck was white as the snows of a northern Winter, while the brass work along the railings and about the cannon glittered brilliantly in the sunshine. There was a gaudy yellow-and-white striped canopy stretched above a portion of the deck aft; the huge masts seemed to pierce into the blue of the skies; while on every side were ranged grim guns of brass and iron.
My role was that of an ignorant, green, half-frightened darky, and I presume I both appeared and acted the natural-born idiot, if I might judge from the expression upon the Spaniard's face, and the broad grin lighting up the fierce countenance of the sentry at the gangway. Yet back of this mask there was grim determination and fixed purpose, so that no article of furniture was along that broad deck which I did not mentally photograph, so as to know its whereabouts if ever I chanced that way again. Ay! even to a little cuddy door beside the cookhouse, apparently opening directly into the mysterious regions below, and a great chest lashed hard against the rail, within which I distinguished the bright colors of numerous flags. I noticed also the odd manner in which queer rope ladders led up from either side of the broad deck to the vast spars high above, rising tier on tier until my head grew dazed with gazing at them.
"Vel, Sambo, my black fellow," grinned the officer, whose eyes were still lazily following my erratic movements as I peered innocently into the muzzle of a brass carronade in apparent hope of discovering the ball, "zis vus ze first time you vus ever on ze war-sheep, I sink likely. How you like stop here, hey, an' fight wis dos sings?" And he rested his yellow hand caressingly upon the breech of the gun.
I shook my head energetically, rendering as prominent as possible the whites of my eyes, at which he grinned wider than ever.
"No, sah, Mister Oppercer Man; you don't git dis hyer nigger into no fought, sah," I protested with vehemence. "I done fought wid de Injuns onct, sah, an' I done don't want no mo'."
"Veil, you not vorry, boy; you voud be no good on ze war-sheep. But now you come wis me to ze Capitaine—bring ze olif."
Bearing a tempting sample of the Spaniard's favorite fruit tightly clutched in my black hand, and pulling my battered straw hat lower in concealment of my telltale hair, I made awkward attempt to shuffle along behind him, as he carelessly advanced toward the after part of the vessel. But I loitered along our passage to examine so many objects of curiosity, asking such a multitude of extremely absurd questions, that we consumed considerable time in traversing even the comparatively short distance to where the rigid sentinel fronted us before the cabin door. My queries were simple enough to have birth in the brain of a fool, yet my guide was of rare good humor, and evidently so amused at my ignorant curiosity that his patience withstood the strain. On my part none were blindly asked, but were intended to open a way toward others of the utmost importance. My sole purpose at that moment was to lull suspicion to rest; when
