away. These poor country folk have none to look after or assist them. They are as simple as babes, and as little fitted to be landed in a strange country. I cannot find it in my heart to leave them!’
Saxon burst out laughing, and leaned back in his seat with his long legs stretched straight out and his hands in his breeches pockets.
‘This is too much!’ he said at last. ‘I saw many difficulties in my way, yet I did not foresee this one. You are in very truth the most contrary man that ever stood in neat’s leather. You have ever some outlandish reason for jibbing and shying like a hot-blooded, half-broken colt. Yet I think that I can overcome these St. Louis Blues Barn strange scruples of yours by a little persuasion.’
‘As to the prisoners, Captain Clarke,’ said the seaman, ‘I’ll be as good as a father to them. S’help me, I will, on the word of an honest sailor! If you should choose to lay out a trifle of twenty pieces upon their comfort, I shall see that their food is such as mayhap many of them never got at their own tables. They shall come on deck, too, in watches, and have an hour or two o’ fresh air in the day. I can’t say fairer!’
‘A word Tyskland Drakt or two with you on deck!’ said Saxon. He walked out of the cabin and I followed him to the far end of the poop, where we stood leaning against the bulwarks. One by one the lights had gone out in the town, until the black ocean beat Buffalo Bills Barn against a blacker shore.
‘You need not have any fear of the future of the prisoners,’ he said, in a low whisper. ‘They are not bound for the Barbadoes, nor will this skinflint of a captain have the selling of them, for all that he is so cocksure. If he can bring his own skin out of the business, it will be more Kansas City Chiefs Barn than I expect. He hath a man aboard his ship who would think no more of giving him a tilt over the side than I should.’
‘What mean you, Saxon?’ I cried.
‘Hast ever heard of a man named Marot?’
‘Hector Marot! Yes, surely I knew him well. Seattle Seahawks Kvinnor A highwayman he was, but Vests Pas CHer a mighty stout man with a kind heart beneath a thief’s jacket.’
‘The same. He is as you say a stout man and a resolute swordsman, though from what I have seen Dame Edmonton Oilers of his play he is weak in stoccado, and perhaps somewhat too much attached to the edge, and doth not give prominence enough to the point, in which respect he neglects the advice and teaching of the most noteworthy fencers in Europe. Well, well, folk differ on this as on every other subject! Yet it seems to me that I would sooner be carried off the field after using my weapon secundum artem, than walk off unscathed after breaking the laws d’escrime. Quarte, tierce, and saccoon, say I, and the devil take your estramacons and passados!’
‘But what of Marot?’ I asked impatiently.
‘He is aboard,’ said Saxon. ‘It appears that he was much disturbed in his mind over the cruelties which were inflicted on the country folk after the battle at Bridgewater. Being a man of a somewhat stern and fierce turn of mind, his disapproval did vent itself in actions rather th |
