“Murdered, your honour!” reiterated Bill Jennings; “Tom murdered! No, no, the shove gave him better headway--” “Why did not you declare, but this minute,” said I, “that the Spaniard run him through the heart?” “Through Tom’s heart! Lord love you, no,” he replied; “it warn’t Tom’s heart, but through the heart of a cabbage, I was going to say, only your honour interrupted me,--a cabbage that was in the bag. Well, there was a pretty chase all along shore, till the Spaniard fires a pistol that hit him right in the head--” “Well, then, he’s dead enough now, I suppose,” exclaimed I, “if shooting through the head will kill a man.” “It warn’t Tom’s head,” he replied, laughing, “it was the sheep’s head; for Tom kept the ould chap dodging about till he saw the cask of dollars was in the boat, and she with her three lugs rap full standing off shore with a spanking breeze, and then he pretends to trip up over a piece of rock and lays him all along, hove down on his beam ends. Up comes the Signor hand over hand; because why? Poor Tom had made every nail an anchor, and clung to the earth as if it had been his own nat’ral mother. So, up comes the Signor and grabs hold of the bag, which Tom held on, like grim death against the doctor; but after some tuzzling, Tom lets go the bag and runs for it, leaving Jack Spaniard with his prize. Well, Tom gets down to the captain’s gig and shoves off to the Muskitoe schooner, what was lying in-shore, and the Signor hoists the bag on his shoulders, fully sartin from the weight that he’d made a rich seizure, and back he marches to the guard-house, where every soul had turned out to enjoy a sight of the chase, (so that the cart with the cask passed by without being examined,) and now remained grouped together to see what the Signor had got. There was Spanish sodgers in their cockt-hats, custom-house officers in their long punchos, and coast-o’guinea niggers, men and women, cracking their jokes at the expense of poor Tom, and highly delighted that his cargo was captured, nothing doubting but that it was dollars, or mayhap ounce-bits--that’s doubleloons, messmates,--and all were eager to see it opened, little suspecting it was a mere bag o’ moonshine. Well, the Signor comes right slap into the middle of ’em, puffing and blowing like a sparmacity, and throws down his treasure; one of the black fellows out’s knife and cuts the seizing at the mouth of the bread-bag, and away rolls sheep’s heads and cabbages with a good sprinkling of garlic; and, my eyes, the sodgers began to roar with laughing; the custom-house officers turned-to and swore at every Saint in the calendar, the niggers went dancing mad with delight at the fun, whilst the ould Signor twirled his mouthstarshers and cursed every thing an inch high. But the dollars were safe, and Tom got a handsome present for his trouble; whilst Jack Spaniard was in a precious stew of sheep’s heads and impartinances to think he’d been done so completely.”