Commodore Junk Part 44

"Commodore Junk."

"Why? Am I a prisoner?"

"Yes."

"Am I to be shot?"

"Don't know."

"Where am I?"

"Here."

"But what place is this?"

"Don't know."

"But--"

"Want any more wine or fruit?"

"No; I want my liberty."

"Belongs to the captain."

"Tell the captain I wish to see him."

Bart said no more, but took his departure.

The prisoner was more fortunate with Dinny, who could be communicative.

"That's it, captain, darlin'," he said one day. "Don't ye fale like a little boy again, and that I'm your mother washing your poor face!"

"Don't fool, my good fellow, but talk to me."

"Talk to you, is it?"

"Yes; you can talk to me."

"Talk to ye--can I talk to ye! Hark at him, mate!" he cried, appealing to the great idol. "Why, I'm a divil at it."

"Well, then, tell me how I came here."

"Faix, didn't I carry ye on my back?"

"Yes, but after the fight?"

"Afther the foight--oh! is it afther the foight ye mane? Sure, and it was the skipper's ordhers, and I carried ye here, and Bart--you know the tother one--he brought in the bed and the rugs and things to make ye dacent. It's a bit damp, and the threes have a bad habit of putting in their noses like the pigs at home; but it's an illigant bed-room for a gintleman afther all."

"It was the captain's orders, you say?"

"Sure, an' it was."

"And where are we?"

"Why, here we are."

"Yes, yes; but what place is this?"

"Sure, an' it's the skipper's palace."

"Commodore Junk's?"

"Yis."

"And what place is it--where are we?"

"Faix, and they say that sick payple is hard to deal wid. It's what I'm telling you sure. It's the skipper's palace, and here it is."

"My good fellow, you told me all that; but I want to know whereabouts it is."

"Oh-h! Whereabouts it is, you mane!"

"Yes, yes."

"Why, right away in the woods."

"Far from the sh.o.r.e!"

"Ah, would ye!" cried Dinny, with a grin full of cunning. "Ye'd be getting all the information out of me, and then as soon as ye get well be running away."

"Yes," said Humphrey, "If I can."

"Well, that's honest," cried Dinny. "And it's meself would do it if I got a chance."

"No," said Humphrey, sadly; "I could not do that and leave my men."

"Faix, and they'd leave ye if they got a chance, sor."

"How are they all!"

"Oh, they're getting right enough," said Dinny. "Ye've been the worst of 'em all yerself, and if ye don't make haste ye'll be last."

"But tell me, my lad, why am I kept in prison!"

"Tell ye why you're kept in prison?"

"Yes."