even an I nivver gets rid o' this here outer darkness--be blowed if I han't got a white mind, any ways, an' free I'll be, my boy! But I laughs, in course, when I see'd the fittish-man grin at me--for thinks I, "My cocks, you're logged down for a pretty long spell of it!" "'Well, bo,' somehow I knows no more about it till such time as I sort o' wakes up in pitch-dark, all choke and sweat, an' a feller's dirty big toe in my mouth, with mine in some un else's eye; so out I spits it, an' makes a scramble for my life. By the roll and the splash I knowed I wor down in the schooner's hold; an' be hanged if there warn't twenty or thirty holding on like bees to a open weather-port, where the fresh wind and the spray come a-blowing through--but there, my boy, 'twere no go for to get so much as the tip o' yer nose. Accordently, up I prizes myself with my feet on another poor devil's wool--for d' ye see, by that time I minds a man's face no more nor so much timber--an' I feels for the hatch over me, where by good luck, as I thought, there I finds it not battened down yet, so I shoved my head through on deck like a blacksmith's hammer. "'Well, mate, there was the schooner's deck wet, a swell of a sea on round her, well off the land, no trifle of a morning gale, and the craft heeling to it; a lot o' hands up on her yards, a-reefing at the boom mains'l and fo'taups'l, an' if my heart doesn't jump into my mouth with the sight, for I feels it for all the world like a good glass o' grog, settin' all to rights. Two or three there was walkin' aft the quarter-deck, so out I sings, "Hullo! hullo there, shipmates, give us a hand out o' this!" Two on 'em comes for'ard, one lifts a handspike, but both gives a grin, as much as to say it's some nigger tongue or other in place o' good English--for, d' ye see, they'd half their faces black-beard, and rings i' their ears--when up walks another chap like the skipper, an' more the looks of a countryman. "I'm a free-born Briton!" roars I again; with that he lends me a squint, looks to the men, and gives some sort of a sign, when they jams-to the hatch and nips me fast by the neck. "Devil of a deep beggar, this 'ere!" says he; "jist give him the gag, my lads," says he; "the planters often thinks more of a dumby, 'cause he works the more, and a stout piece o' goods this _is_!" says he. Well, mate, what does they do but one pulls out a knife, an' be blowed if they warn't a-goin' for to cut out my tongue; but the men aloft sung out to hoist away the yards; so they left me ready clinched till they'd belay the ropes. Next a hand for'ard, by good luck, hailed "Sail ho!" and they'd some'at else to think o' besides me; for there, my boy, little more nor three miles to wind'ard, I see'd the _Irish_ as she come driving bodily out o' the mist, shakin' out her three to'gallant-sails, an' a white spray flying with her off one surge to another. Rather bad it was, mind ye, for my windpipe, for every time