Wait till the anchor's down
before you get afraid.'"
"That's what she said to me," Munster proclaimed. "And of course it made
me mad so that I didn't care what happened. We tried to send a boat
ashore for a pow-wow, but it was fired upon. And every once and a while
some nigger'd take a long shot at us out of the mangroves."
"They was only a quarter of a mile off," Sparrowhawk explained, "and it
was damned nasty. 'Don't shoot unless they try to board,' was Miss
Lackland's orders; but the dirty niggers wouldn't board. They just lay
off in the bush and plugged away. That night we held a council of war in
the _Flibberty's_ cabin. 'What we want,' says Miss Lackland, 'is a
hostage.'"
"'That's what they do in books,' I said, thinking to laugh her away from
her folly," Munster interrupted. "'True,' says she, 'and have you never
seen the books come true?' I shook my head. 'Then you're not too old to
learn,' says she. 'I'll tell you one thing right now,' says I, 'and that
is I'll be blowed if you catch me ashore in the night-time stealing
niggers in a place like this.'"
"You didn't say blowed," Sparrowhawk corrected. "You said you'd be
damned."
"That's what I did, and I meant it, too."
"'Nobody asked you to go ashore,' says she, quick as lightning,"
Sparrowhawk grinned.
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