* * * * *
"I didn't ezackly make out what that cymlin-headed feller did it fur,"
Jimmy Phoebus remarked, in the hold of an old oyster pungy, where he
found himself with his mulatto friend and Aunt Hominy and the children,
"but the file he fetched me has done its work at last. Yer, Whatcoat,"
addressing his male fellow-prisoner, "take this knife the same feller
slipped me, an' cut these cords." Standing up free again, Mr. Phoebus
further remarked,
"Whatcoat, thar's two of us yer. By smoke! thar's three."
The docile colored man opened his eyes.
"Him!" exclaimed the sailor, indicating the feather-bed in the hold,
with its stiff, invisible contents; "Joe'll chuck him overboard down yer
about deep water somewhere. Now, for a little hokey-pokey; I think I'll
git in thar myself, an' let Joe sell t'other feller fur a nigger."
Phoebus's power over his fellow-prisoners--little children and idiotic
Hominy included--was now perfect, and he began to explore the rotten old
hold, which contained oyster-rakes, fish-lines, and the usual utensils
of a dredging-vessel, and soon discovered that there could be made a
clear passage to crawl through her from forecastle to-cabin by removing
a few boards.
"Yer, Hominy," he said, "get to work with your needle, old gal; I'm
goin' to take you home."
* * * * *
With a good start, and a fair wind and slack tide, Johnson was off
Vienna at eight o'clock.
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