at his hands? Why, you are no slave, to be so handled!”
“No,” said the poor moon-calf, changing his tune at once, “and so he’ll find. See ’ere;” and he showed me a great case-knife, which he told me was stolen. “O,” says he, “let me see him try; I dare him to; I’ll do for him! O, he ain’t the first!” And he confirmed it with a poor, silly, ugly oath.
I have never felt such pity for anyone in this wide world as I felt for that half-witted creature; and it began to come over me that the brig Covenant (for all her pious name) was little better than a hell upon the seas.
“Have you no friends?” said I.
He said he had a father in some English seaport, I forget which. “He was a fine man, too,” he said; “but he’s dead.”
“In Heaven’s name,” cried I, “can you find no reputable life on shore?”
“O, no,” says he, winking and looking very sly; “they would put me to a trade. I know a trick worth two of that, I do!”
I asked him what trade could be so dreadful as the one he followed, where he ran the continual peril of his life, not alone from wind and sea, but by the horrid cruelty of those who were his masters. He said it was very true; and then began to praise the life, and tell what a pleasure it was to get on shore with money in his pocket, and spend it like a man,
