“Let her be!” growled Smoke-Jack. “Wot call have _you_ now to come athwart-hawse of that there jabbering mounseer, as a man might say, dredging in his own fishing-ground? It’s no use hailing her, I tell ye, mate, I knows the trim on ’em; maybe she’ll lay her foresail aback, and stand off-and-on till sundown, then just when a man least expects it, she’ll up stick, shake out every rag of canvas, and run for port. Bless ye, young _and_ old, fair _and_ foul, black, white, _and_ coloured, nigger, quadroon, _and_ mustee—I knows ’em all, and not one on ’em but carries a weather-helm in a fresh breeze, and steers wild and wilful in a sea-way.” But Slap-Jack was not to be diverted from his purpose. With considerable impudence, and an impressive sea-bow, he walked up to Célandine under the eyes of his admiring shipmates, and, mustering the best negro-French at his command, warned her in somewhat incomprehensible jargon of the imposition intended to be practised. Now it happened that Port Welcome, and the island in which it was situated, had been occupied in its varying fortunes by French, Spaniards, and English so equally, that these languages, much corrupted by negro pronunciation, were spoken indiscriminately, and often altogether. It was a great relief, therefore, to Slap-Jack that Célandine thanked him politely for his interposition in his native tongue, and when she looked into the young foretopman’s comely brown face, she found herself so fascinated with something she detected there as to continue the conversation in tolerably correct English, for the purpose of improving their acquaintance. The seaman congratulated himself on having made so happy a discovery, while his friends looked on in mute admiration of the celerity with which he had completed his conquest. “He’s a smart chap, mate,” enunciated Bottle-Jack, with a glance of intense approval at the two figures receding up the sunny street, as Célandine marched their companion off, avowedly for the purpose of refreshing him with cooling drinks in return for his good-nature—“a smart young chap, and can hold his own with the best of ’em as ever hoisted a petticoat, silk or dowlas. See now, that’s the way to do it in these here latitudes! First he hails ’em, speaking up like a man, then he ranges alongside, and gets the grapplers out, and so tows his prize into port in a pig’s whisper. He’s a smart young chap, I tell ye, and a match for the sauciest craft as ever sailed under false colours, and hoisted a red pennant at the main.” But Smoke-Jack shook his head, and led his shipmate, nothing loth, into a tempting store-house, redolent with the fragrance of limes, tobacco, decaying melons, and Jamaica rum. He said nothing, however, until he had quenched his thirst; then after a vigorous pull at a tall beaker, filled with a fragrant compound in which neither ice nor alcohol had been forgotten, observed, as if the subject still occupied his thoughts—