“Gentlemen,” said he to his cabin passengers, “for the love of Heaven, tax your invention to discover some means whereby to get one-half of these men out of the vessel, otherwise it will be impossible that we can sail to-day.  I have already proffered to take one-half of them by lot, but they will not hear of it; and how to manage I am sure I don’t know.”

The matter, however, was beyond their depth; the thing seemed utterly impracticable, and the chances of their putting to sea were becoming fainter and fainter.

“Bl—­t their eyes!” he at length exclaimed, “the ragged, hungry devils!  If they heard me with decency I could bear their obstinacy bettor:  but no, they must turn me into ridicule, and break their jests, and turn their cursed barbarous grins upon me in my own vessel.  I say, boys,” he added, proceeding to address them once more—­“I say, savages, I have just three observations to make.  The first is,”—­

“Arrah, Captain, avourneen, hadn’t you betther get upon a stool,” said a voice, “an’ put a text before it, thin divide it dacently into three halves, an’ make a sarmon of it.”

“Captain, you wor intended for the church,” added another.  “You’re the moral (* model) of a Methodist preacher, if you wor dressed in black.”

“Let him alone,” said a third; “he’d be a jinteel man enough in a wildherness, an’ ’ud make an illigant dancin’-masther to the bears.”

“He’s as graceful as a shaved pig on its hind legs, dancin’ the ‘Baltithrum Jig.’”

The captain’s face was literally black with passion:  he turned away with a curse, which produced another huzza, and swore that he would rather encounter the Bay of Biscay in a storm, than have anything to do with such an unmanageable mob.

“Captain,” said a little, shrewd-looking Connaught man, “what ’ud you be willin’ to give anybody, ower an’ abow his free passage, that ’ud tell you how to get one half o’ them out?”

“I’ll give him a crown,” replied the captain, “together with grog and rations to the eyes:  I’ll be hanged if I don’t.”

“Then I’ll do it fwhor you, sir, if you keep your word wit me.”

“Done!” said the captain; “it’s a bargain, my good fellow, if you accomplish it; and, what’s more, I’ll consider you a knowing one.”

“I’m a poor Cannaught man, your haner,” replied our friend Phil; “but what’s to prevent me thryin’?  Tell thim,” he continued, “that you must go; purtind to be for takin’ thim all wit you, sir.  Put Munster agin Connaught, one-half on this side, an’ the odher an that, to keep the crathur of a ship steady, your haner; an’ fwhin you have thim half an’ half, wit a little room betuxt thim, ‘now,’ says yer haner, ’boys, you’re divided into two halves; if one side kicks the other out o’ the ship, I’ll bring the conquirors.’”

The captain said not a word in reply to Phil, but immediately ranged the Munster and Connaught men on each side of the deck—­a matter which he found little difficulty in accomplishing, for each party, hoping that he intended to take themselves, readily declared their province, and stood together.  When they were properly separated, there still remained about forty or fifty persons belonging to neither province; but, at Phil’s suggestion, the captain paired them off to each division, man for man, until they were drawn up into two bodies.