Jack Harkaway and His Son's Escape from the Brigands of Greece Part 107

"So are we."

"I guessed as much," retorted Hunston, "by the way you pulled to help a poor devil. It was nearly all over with me."

"Just in time. Well, that's one to us, messmate."

"Yes, and you'll find that I'm able to reward you with something more solid than thanks."

"Get along; me and my mate here don't save lives at so much an 'ed."

"I believe you," said Hunston, "but I should be a villain if I did not do something handsome for you if I could."

"I tell you what, mate, you shall lug me and my mate out of the water."

"When you get the chance," laughed the other.

"Jes' so."

"How came you there, though?" demanded the former sailor, suddenly.

"It's a long story," said Hunston, taking breath, and thinking up a good plausible "whacker"; "so I'll tell you without all the details."

"Do."

"There's a very rich and powerful man in this place, who has a very lovely wife. Well, this lady--"

"Casts sheep's eyes at you."

"Ha, ha!"

"Well, that is about it," returned Hunston, laughingly. "It's no fault of mine. I'm sure I never encouraged her. But her husband is precious jealous, and the consequence is that he had got me out to sea in a boat with a gang of murderers--"

"The swabs!"

"Marlinspikes and grampuses!" cried the other.

"They were going to practise a curious trick upon me. It is an inst.i.tution of their neighbours and masters, the Turks, and they call it the bowstring."

"D--n their fiddling," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed one of the sailors; "I'd like to have 'em here just awhile. I'd bowstring 'em and show 'em what black eyes, and good old English fisticuffs mean."

"I don't think that they would care to be instructed in that," said Hunston.

"I'd, I'd--"

"Let the gentleman go on," said the other.

"Well, the fact is, I got out, jumped overboard and capsized the boat in my struggling, and some of them, I dare say, have gone to the bottom."

"Hurrah!" shouted one of the sailors.

"Hurrah!"

"I hope you finished off the lot of the swabs."

"I don't think that. But anyhow, I'd give a trifle if I could get clear out of this place."

"I can tell you how to do it"

"You can?"

"Yes."

"That's jolly."

"Easily done."

And then the sailor suggested bringing him aboard their s.h.i.+p and introducing him to the skipper.

Hunston listened and then shook his head.

"What," exclaimed the sailor, "won't do?"

"No."

"Why?"

"I'll tell you; a blessed outcry would be raised, and the skipper would be forced to give me up to be tried."

"Well, they would not dare to play false."

"Not while there was a British man-o'-war in the harbour; but nothing short of that would prevent the villains doing any thing they liked with me. They would go through the mockery of a trial with me, and I should be condemned to death beforehand."

"The wampires."

"Wuss wuss, nor wampires, Joe," said the other sailor, wagging his head gravely.

"There is only one way to get out of this sc.r.a.pe," said Hunston.

"Out with it then."

"Why, earn forty pounds apiece and stow me away on board in the hold, anywhere, until you are out at sea," said the fugitive.

The two sailors looked hard at each other.

"Can't do it."

"No."

"Why not?"