“Me no sabe, massa--top, I shall see.” And the fellow to whom I addressed myself stepped forward, and began to squint into the muzzle of one of the fieldpieces, slewing his head from side to side, with absurd gravity, like a magpie peeping into a marrow-bone. “Him most be load-- no daylight come troo de touch-hole--take care make me try him.” And without more ado he shook out the red embers from his pipe right on the touch-hole of the gun, when the fragment of a broken tube spun up in a small jet of flame, that made me start and jump back. “How dare you, you scoundrel?” said the captain. “Eigh, massa, him no hax me to see if him be load--so I was try see. Indeed, I tink him is load after all yet.” He stepped forward, and entered his rammer into the cannon, after an unavailing attempt to blow with his blubber-lips through the touch hole. Noticing that it did not produce the ringing sound it would have done in an empty gun, but went home with a soft thud, I sung out, “Stand clear, sir. By Jupiter, the gun is loaded.” The negro continued to bash at it with all his might. Meanwhile, the fellow who was driving the mules attached to the fieldpiece, turned his head, and saw what was going on. In a trice he snatched up another rammer, and, without any warning, came crack over the fellow’s cranium to whom we had been speaking, as hard as he could draw, making the instrument quiver again. “Dem you, ye, ye Jericho--ah so you bash my brokefast--eh? You no see me tick him into de gun before we yoke de mule, dem, eh? You tief you, eh?” “No!” roared the other--“You Walkandyam, you hab no brokefast, you liard, at least I never see him.” “Dem lie dat!” replied Walkandnyam--“look in de gun.” Jericho peered into it again. “Dere, you son of a--” (I sha’n’t say what)--“dere, I see de red flannin wadding over de cartridge--Your brokefast!--you be dem!” roared Jericho. And he made at him as if he would have eaten him alive. “You be dem youshef!” shrieked Walkandnyam--“and de red wadding be dem!” as he took a screw, and hooked out, not a cartridge certainly, but his own nightcap, full of yams and salt fish, smashed into a paste by Jericho’s rammer.