WHEN they got aboard the king went for me, and shook
me by the collar, and says:
"Tryin' to give us the slip, was ye, you pup!
Tired of our company, hey?"
I says:
"No, your majesty, we warn't — PLEASE don't,
your majesty!"
"Quick, then, and tell us what WAS your idea, or
I'll shake the insides out o' you!"
"Honest, I'll tell you everything just as it
happened, your majesty. The man that had a-holt of me was
very good to me, and kept saying he had a boy about as
big as me that died last year, and he was sorry to see a
boy in such a dangerous fix; and when they was all took
by surprise by finding the gold, and made a rush for the
coffin, he lets go of me and whispers, 'Heel it now, or
they'll hang ye, sure!' and I lit out. It didn't seem no
good for ME to stay — I couldn't do nothing, and I
didn't want to be hung if I could get away. So I never
stopped running till I found the canoe; and when I got
here I told Jim to hurry, or they'd catch me and hang me
yet, and said I was afeard you and the duke wasn't alive
now, and I was awful sorry, and so was Jim, and was awful
glad when we see you coming; you may ask Jim if I didn't."
Jim said it was so; and the king told him to shut up,
and said, "Oh, yes, it's MIGHTY likely!" and
shook me up again, and said he reckoned he'd drownd me.
But the duke says:
"Leggo the boy, you old idiot! Would YOU a done
any different? Did you inquire around for HIM when you
got loose? I don't remember it."
So the king let go of me, and begun to cuss that town
and everybody in it. But the duke says:
"You better a blame' sight give YOURSELF a good
cussing, for you're the one that's entitled to it most.
You hain't done a thing from the start that had any sense
in it, except coming out so cool and cheeky with that
imaginary blue-arrow mark. That WAS bright — it was
right down bully; and it was the thing that saved us. For
if it hadn't been for that they'd a jailed us till them
Englishmen's baggage come — and then — the
penitentiary, you bet! But that trick took 'em to the
graveyard, and the gold done us a still bigger kindness;
for if the excited fools hadn't let go all holts and made
that rush to get a look we'd a slept in our cravats to-night
— cravats warranted to WEAR, too — longer than WE'D
need 'em."
They was still a minute — thinking; then the king
says, kind of absent-minded like:
"Mf! And we reckoned the NIGGERS stole it!"
That made me squirm!
"Yes," says the duke, kinder slow and
deliberate and sarcastic, "WE did."
After about a half a minute the king drawls out:
"Leastways, I did."
The duke says, the same way:
"On the contrary, I did."
The king kind of ruffles up, and says:
"Looky here, Bilgewater, what'r you referrin' to?"
The duke says, pretty brisk:
"When it comes to that, maybe you'll let me ask,
what was YOU referring to?"
"Shucks!" says the king, very sarcastic;
"but I don't know — maybe you was asleep, and
didn't know what you was about."
The duke bristles up now, and says:
"Oh, let UP on this cussed nonsense; do you take
me for a blame' fool? Don't you reckon I know who hid
that money in that coffin?"
"YES, sir! I know you DO know, because you done
it yourself!"
"It's a lie!" — and the duke went for him.
The king sings out:
"Take y'r hands off! — leggo my throat! — I
take it all back!"
The duke says:
"Well, you just own up, first, that you DID hide
that money there, intending to give me the slip one of
these days, and come back and dig it up, and have it all
to yourself."
"Wait jest a minute, duke — answer me this one
question, honest and fair; if you didn't put the money
there, say it, and I'll b'lieve you, and take back
everything I said."
"You old scoundrel, I didn't, and you know I
didn't. There, now!"
"Well, then, I b'lieve you. But answer me only
jest this one more — now DON'T git mad; didn't you have
it in your mind to hook the money and hide it?"
The duke never said nothing for a little bit; then he
says:
"Well, I don't care if I DID, I didn't DO it,
anyway. But you not only had it in mind to do it, but you
DONE it."
"I wisht I never die if I done it, duke, and
that's honest. I won't say I warn't goin' to do it,
because I WAS; but you — I mean somebody — got in ahead
o' me."
"It's a lie! You done it, and you got to SAY you
done it, or —"
The king began to gurgle, and then he gasps out:
"'Nough! — I OWN UP!"
I was very glad to hear him say that; it made me feel
much more easier than what I was feeling before. So the
duke took his hands off and says:
"If you ever deny it again I'll drown you. It's
WELL for you to set there and blubber like a baby — it's
fitten for you, after the way you've acted. I never see
such an old ostrich for wanting to gobble everything —
and I a-trusting you all the time, like you was my own
father. You ought to been ashamed of yourself to stand by
and hear it saddled on to a lot of poor niggers, and you
never say a word for 'em. It makes me feel ridiculous to
think I was soft enough to BELIEVE that rubbage. Cuss
you, I can see now why you was so anxious to make up the
deffisit — you wanted to get what money I'd got out of
the Nonesuch and one thing or another, and scoop it ALL!"
The king says, timid, and still a-snuffling:
"Why, duke, it was you that said make up the
deffisit; it warn't me."
"Dry up! I don't want to hear no more out of you!"
says the duke. "And NOW you see what you GOT by it.
They've got all their own money back, and all of OURN but
a shekel or two BESIDES. G'long to bed, and don't you
deffersit ME no more deffersits, long 's YOU live!"
So the king sneaked into the wigwam and took to his
bottle for comfort, and before long the duke tackled HIS
bottle; and so in about a half an hour they was as thick
as thieves again, and the tighter they got the lovinger
they got, and went off a-snoring in each other's arms.
They both got powerful mellow, but I noticed the king
didn't get mellow enough to forget to remember to not
deny about hiding the money-bag again. That made me feel
easy and satisfied. Of course when they got to snoring we
had a long gabble, and I told Jim everything.