It is probable that Captain Kettle would have found occasion to make acid comment on this repartee from his inferior officer, but at that moment another voice addressed him from the slit at the other side of his prison, and he turned sharply round. To his surprise this new person spoke in very tolerable English. "Capt'n, I want t'make contrack wid you." "The deuce you do. And who might you be, anyway?" "I cullud gen'lem'n, sar. Born _Zanzibar_. Used to be fireman on P. and O. I want arsk you--" "Is this the Arabian Nights? How the mischief did you get here, anyway?" "Went on burst in Aden, sar. Th'ole Chief fired me out. Went Yemen. Caught for slave. Taken caravan. Brought here. But I'm very clever gen'lem'n, sar, an' soon bought myself free. Got slave of my own now. An' three wives. Bought 'nother wife yesterday." "You nasty beast!" said Kettle. "Sar, you insult me. Not bally Christian any longer. Hard-shell Mohammedan now, sar, and can marry as many wives as I can buy." "I'm sure the Prophet's welcome to you. Look here, my man. Pass down a rope's end from aloft there, and let me get on deck, and I'll give you a sovereign cash down, and a berth in my steamboat's stoke-hold if you want one. I'm not asking you to help me more. I guess I'm quite competent to find my way on board, and to wipe this house tolerably clean before it's quit of me." "Nothing of the kind, sar," said the man behind the slit. "You insult me, sar. I very big gen'lem'n here, sar, an' a sovereign's no use to me. Besides, I partner to ole man Rad, an' he say he want dem rifles you got on your ole tramp." "Does he, indeed? Then you can tell him, Mr. Nigger runaway-drunken-fireman, that I'll see you and him in somewhere a big sight hotter than Arabia before he gets them. I didn't know they were rifles; if I had known before this, I'd not have put them ashore; but as things are now, I'll land them into the hands of those that ordered them, and I hope they come round to this town of yours and give you fits. And see here, you talk more respectful about my steamboat, or you'll get your shins kicked, daddy." "An ole tramp," said the man relishingly. "I served on P. an' O., sar, an' on P. an' O. we don't care 'sociate wid tramps' sailors." "You impudent black cannibal. You'll be one of the animals those passenger lines carry along to eat the dead babies, to save the trouble of heaving them overboard." The ex-fireman spluttered. But he did not continue the contest. He recognized that he had to deal with a master in the cheerful art of insult, and so he came back sulkily to business. "Will you give Rad dem rifles, you low white fellow?" "No, I won't." "Very well. Den we shall spiflicate you till you do," said the man, and after that Kettle heard his slippers shuffling away.