“Well, boys,” he remarked to his followers, who had now lowered their weapons and were standing about at ease, “here’s the little pippin I was tellin’ of.  ‘Fraid we give her a little scare bustin’ in so sudden, so she ain’t quite so bright and smilin’ as I like to see.  Its all right, girlie; you’ll soon cheer up when you find out you’re go’in’ to be the little queen o’ this camp.  Things will be all your way now—­so long as you treat me right.”  And the abominable creature thrust forth a hairy paw and deliberately chucked me under the chin.

I heard a roar from the log—­and coincidently from Captain Magnus.  For with the instant response of an automaton—­consciously I had nothing at all to do with it—­I had reached up and briskly boxed the captain’s ears.

Furiously he caught my wrist.  “Ah, you red-headed little devil, you’ll pay for this!  I ain’t pretty, oh, no!  I ain’t a handsome mooncalf like the Honorable; I ain’t got a title, nor girly pink cheeks, nor fine gentleman ways.  No walks with the likes o’ me, no tatey-tates in the woods—­oh, no!  Well, it’s goin’ to be another story now, girlie.  I guess you can learn to like my looks, with a little help from my fist now and then, jest as well as you done the Honorable’s.  I guess it won’t be long before I have you crawlin’ on your knees to me for a word o’ kindness.  I guess—­”

“Aw, stow that soft stuff, Magnus,” advised Slinker.  “You can do your spoonin’ with the gal later on.  We’re here to git that gold, and don’t you forget it.  Plenty o’ time afterwards to spark the wimmen.”

“That’s the talk,” chimed in Blackbeard.  “Don’t run us on a lee shore for the sake of a skirt.  Skirts is thicker’n herring in every port, ain’t they?”

“I got a score to settle with this one,” growled Magnus sullenly, but his grasp loosened on my arm, and I slipped from him and fled to Aunt Jane—­yes, to Aunt Jane—­and clung to her convulsively.  The poor little woman was crying, of course, making a low inarticulate whimper like a frightened child.  Miss Higglesby-Browne seemed to have petrified.  Her skin had a withered look, and a fine network of lines showed on it, suddenly clear, like a tracery on parchment.  Beyond her I saw the face of Dugald Shaw, gray with a steely wrath.  A gun had been trained anew on him and Cuthbert, and the bearer thereof was arguing with them profanely.  I suppose the prisoners had threatened outbreak at the spectacle of the chin-chucking.

No one had bothered to secure Cookie, and he knelt among the pots and pans of his open-air kitchen, pouring forth petitions in a steady stream.  Blackboard, who seemed a jovial brute, burst into a loud guffaw.

“Ha, ha!  Look at old Soot-and-Cinders gittin’ hisself ready for glory!” He approached the negro and aimed at him a kick which Cookie, arising with unexpected nimbleness, contrived to dodge.  “Looky here, darky, git busy dishin’ up the grub, will you?  I could stand one good feed after the forecastle slops we been livin’ on.”