Part 1 (2/2)
”Haven't you?” muttered the other disdainfully
”No, never a one”
”And you've never seen none of 'em h'executed, as I have, at Canton, in batches of a dozen or more?”
”No, Bill; how does they do it?”
”Why, ars all kneel down in a roith their hands tied behind the--I s'pose he's called their Jack Ketch--and he carries a sword that's partly made like a cutlass and partly like a butcher's cleaver, hich he slices off all their heads like so many carrots”
”Lor'!”
”Yes, bo; and the funny thing is to see this executioner chap going along behind all the kneeling figures, afore he knocks their heads off, and pulling this one here and a-shovin' that one theer, so arrangin' on 'em that he can have a clean stroke when he ups with his sword”
”Lor'!” exclai this description
”Yes, bo, it's all true as gospel what I'man chap don't seem to make no more account of them poor devils than if they wos so uns' as they call--cos they can't hurt nobody, I s'pose--that thehten us, as they thought, ent to ith 'em last time, you know”
”But, talkin' about h'executions, Bill, ain't talkin' of pirates, is it, bo? P'raps those poor ignorant chaps you seed have their heads chopped off htn't they!” ejaculated the boatswain of the _Hankow Lin_ in the nant tones ”Much you know about it, you son of a sea-cook, that's all! Why, Jem, I could tell you stories about them cut-throats of the sea in these here waters as would make your hair stand on end
No pirates in the China seas, you say, my joker?”
”I didn't say as there wasn't any I said as there htn't ha' been”
”Well, and wot's the difference, I'd like to know?”
”Belay that, and bouse away, old shi+p, with that yarn o' yours that's going to fright htened yet, I tell you”
”Wait a minute, then, bo,” said the other, as suddenly called aft by the officer of the watch to have sootten; and on his return to the foc's'le Jem was all attention for him to proceed with his promised yarn about the real pirates of who to express a strong disbelief in their entity
”Heave ahead with that 'ere story o' yourn,” he said
”Don't you know, you onbelievin' swab, as how the Singaporeo' theers and then setting fire to her and plundering the cargo, and that this occurred only last year?”
”No, I never heerd tell of it,” said Jeot a noospaper in my ditty-box down beloill tell you all about it, and then, p'r'aps, you'll feel as if you'd believe there wos sich things as pirates”
So saying, the boatswain bustled down into the forecastle, and shortly reappeared above, holding a rather dirty crumpled piece of printed paper in his hand, which he handed to Jem
”There,” he said, ”take that and read for yourself”
The brawny seaman turned it over and over with a solemn face, and then handed it back to the other
”I ain't no scholard,” he observed, rubbing his chin thoughtfully; ”wish I was, 'twould ha' been pounds in my pocket now if I could read and write as I once did when I war a little shaver, but I've clean forgot it You reel off the yarn as is printed there, Bill; and then I'll tell you what I think of it”
”All right, then,” replied the boatswain, nothing loth to display his superior attainoes for a full and true 'count of a tremenjuous piretical plot to seize acorrespondent;” and, holding the dirty scrap of paper at arth, as if he were so extract from it