"Next morning, before we began to get up anchor, the cook turns out of his hammock at six o'clock to light the galley fire, and down he comes again to the forecastle to get coals out of his hold. 'Twas just alongside of my hammock, so I looked over, and says I, 'Hullo, doctor! hold on a minute till I give ye a bit of advice.' 'Mine yar own bus'ness, Jack Wilson,' says the cross-grained old beggar, as he was. 'Dido,' says I, 'who d'ye think I see goin' down your trap last night?' 'Golly!' says he, 'don't know; who was dat, Jack--eh?' and he lets go of the trap-lid. 'Why, Dido,' I told him, ''twas the devil himself!' 'O Lard!' says the nigger, giving a jump, 'what dat gen'leman want dere? Steal coal for bad place! O Lard!--Hish!' says he, whispering into my hammock, 'tell me, Jack Wilson, he black or white--eh?' 'Oh, black!' I said; 'as black as the slaver astarn.' 'O Lard! O Lard! black man's own dibble!' says old Dido; 'what's I to do for cap'en's breakfast, Jack!' 'Why, see if you haven't a few chips o' wood, doctor,' says I, 'till we get out o' this infernal port. Don't they know how to lay the old un among your folks in the States, Dido?' I said, for I'd seen the thing tried. 'Golly! yis!' says the nigger; 'leave some bake yam on stone, with little rum in de pumpkin--'at's how to do!' 'Very good!' says I; 'well, whatever you've got handy, Dido, lower it down to him, and I daresay he'll clear out by to-morrow.' 'Why, what the dibble, Jack!' says he again, scratching his woolly head, 'feed him in 'e ship, won't he stay--eh?' 'Oh, for that matter, Dido,' says I, 'just you send down a sample of the ship's biscuit, with a fid of hard junk, and d--me if he stay long!' A good laugh I had, too, in my hammock, to see the cook follow my advice: he daren't open his hatch more than enough to shove down a line with some grub at the end of it, as much as would have provisioned half a dozen; so I knew there was a stopper clapped on the spot for that day. "When we began to get up anchor, a boat belonging to the schooner pulled round us, and they seemed to want to look through and through us, for them slavers has a nat'ral avarsion to an English ship. They gave a squint or two at old black Dido, and he swore at 'em in exchange for it like a trooper: 'tis hard to say, for a good slack jaw, and all the dirty abuse afloat, whether a Yankee nigger, or a Billingsgate fishwoman, or a Plymouth Point lady, is the worst to stand. I do believe, if we'd been an hour later of sailing, they'd have had a search-warrant aboard of us, with a couple of Spanish guardos, and either pretended they'd lost a fair-bought slave, or got us perhaps condemned for the very thing they were themselves. However, off we went, and by the first dog-watch we'd dropped the land to sou'-west, with stunsails on the larboard side, and the breeze on our quarter.