“Ah, here comes my imaginary jailer to let me out o’ this here abominably real-lookin’ imaginary lockup.  Hang Jo Bumpus!—­why, it’s—­”

Before Jo could find words sufficiently strong to express his opinion of such a murderous intention, the door opened, and a surly-looking man—­a European settler—­entered with his breakfast.  This meal consisted of a baked breadfruit and a can of water.

“Ha! you’ve come to let me out, have you?” cried Jo, in a tone of forced pleasantry, which was anything but cheerful.

“Have I though!” said the man, setting down the food on a small deal table that stood at the head of the bedstead; “don’t think it, my man; your time’s up in another two hours.  Hallo! where got ye the dog?”

“It came in with me last night,—­to keep me company, I fancy, which is more than the human dogs o’ this murderin’ place had the civility to do.”

“If it had know’d you was a murderin’ pirate,” retorted the jailer, “it would ha’ thought twice before it would ha’ chose you for a comrade.”

“Come, now,” said Bumpus, in a remonstrative tone; “you don’t really b’lieve I’m a pirate, do you?”

“In coorse I do.”

“Well, now, that’s ’xtror’nary.  Does everybody else think that too?”

“Everybody.”

“An’ am I really goin’ to be hanged?”

“Till you’re dead as mutton.”

“That’s entertainin’, ain’t it, Toozle?” cried poor Bumpus, with a laugh of desperation; for he found it utterly impossible to persuade himself to believe in the reality of his awful position.

As he said nothing more, the jailer went away, and Bumpus, after heaving two or three very deep sighs, attempted to partake of his meager breakfast.  The effort was a vain one.  The bite stuck in his throat; so he washed it down with a gulp of water, and, for the first time in his life, made up his mind to go without his breakfast.

A little before twelve o’clock the door again opened, and the surly jailer entered, bearing a halter, and accompanied by six stout men.  The irons were now removed from Bumpus’s wrists, and his arms pinioned behind his back.  Being almost stupefied with amazement at his position, he submitted without a struggle.

“I say, friends,” he at last exclaimed, “would any amount of oaths took before a maginstrate convince ye that I’m not a pirate, but a true-blue seaman?”

“If you were to swear from this time till doomsday it would make no difference.  You admit that you were one of the Foam’s crew.  We now know that the Foam and the Avenger are the same schooner.  Birds of a feather flock together.  A pirate would swear anything save his life.  Come,—­time’s up.”

Bumpus bent his head for a minute.  The truth forced itself upon him now in all its dread reality.  But no unmanly terrors filled his breast at that moment.  The fear of man or of violent death was a sensation which the seaman never knew.  The feeling of the huge injustice that was about to be done filled him with generous indignation; the blood rushed to his temples, and, with a bound like a tiger, he leaped out of the jailer’s grasp, hurling him to the ground in the act.