If you st'y I'll go alone; the niggers will likely knock me on the 'ead, and a fat lot you'll be the better! But there's one thing sure: I'll 'ear no more of your moonin', mullygrubbin' rot, and tyke it stryte.' The captain took it with a blink and a gulp.

Memory, with phantom voices, repeated in his cars something similar, something he had once said to Herrick--years ago it seemed.
'Now, gimme over your pistol,' said Huish.

'I 'ave to see all clear.

Six shots, and mind you don't wyste them.' The captain, like a man in a nightmare, laid down his revolver on the table, and Huish wiped the cartridges and oiled the works.
It was close on noon, there was no breath of wind, and the heat was scarce bearable, when the two men came on deck, had the boat manned, and passed down, one after another, into the stern-sheets.

A white shirt at the end of an oar served as a flag of truce; and the men, by direction, and to give it the better chance to be observed, pulled with extreme slowness.