"Badly enough, cap'n, badly enough," was the reply. "But you shall hear the whole story, such as 'tis. Maybe you happen to remember the chap as bought me--a tall, thin feller, with a nose like the beak of an eagle, and a wicked look in his glittering black eyes. Well, as soon as this here Don Christoval--that was his name--as soon as he'd bought all the slaves he wanted, we was all chained together, and started on a march to the south'ard. We travelled the whole width of that cursed island, taking two days over the trip, and was then shipped across in a little flat-bottomed sailin'-boat to the Isle de Pinos, where this here Christoval had a big 'baccy plantation. It took us a whole day, after we'd landed on the Isle of Pines, to reach the place, and on the following morning we were set to work. "As it happened, I was the only white slave on the plantation, and, whether 'twas on this account, or whether 'twas because I was an Englishman, I can't tell, but I soon found out that all hands, from Don Christoval downwards, had a special spite against me, and seemed determined to make the place as hot as they could for me. I was put to all the heaviest and dirtiest work about the place, and if there was a job that had to be done after knockin'-off time, I was the man that had to do it. "There was nothing but Spanish spoke about the place, so I very soon got acquainted with the lingo, whether I liked it or not; and almost the first thing I understood was that Mr Don Christoval had boasted that, fierce as I was, he'd tame me so that in six months I wouldn't dare to say my soul was my own. "Well, you may be sure that my temper hadn't grown much more amiable from being made a slave of, and this palaver about _taming_ just made me worse than ever. I vowed by all that was holy I _wouldn't_ be tamed, let 'em do what they would, and a pretty miserable time of it this stupid vow and my own obstinacy brought me. They used to amuse themselves by seein' what they could do to rouse me; the overseers, as they were riding by, would pull up and begin to abuse and scoff at me, flicking at me with their whips all the time, and I dare say you know pretty well how clever those same overseers are with their whips-- they'll hit a fly twenty feet off. And when they'd see my eyes begin to sparkle, they'd just let out with the infernal whip, fetching me a regular `stinger' across the shoulders, and gallop off, laughing. I can tell you, they made a regular devil of me before all was done.