your
good big ship. But never mind, my good friend, I shall pay you off one
of these days; and now send, please, for Banou to dress his little
boy."

Scarcely had the worthy skipper reached a bell-rope near at hand, and
given it one jerk, than the cabin door opened, and in stepped a brawny
black, whose bare woolly head and white teeth and eyes glittered with
delight. There was that about his face which indicated intelligence,
courage, devotion, and humanity--those indescribable marks of expression
which Nature sometimes stamps in unmistakable lines on the skin, whether
it be white or black. He was below the middle height, but the large head
was set with a great swelling throat on the shoulders of a Titan. His
loose white and red striped shirt was thrown well back over his black
and broad chest; and putting out a pair of muscular arms that seemed as
massive and heavy as lignum vitae, the boy jumped from the captain to
meet them; and then sticking his little soft legs down the slack of
Banou's shirt, he ran his rosy fingers in his wool, and shouted with
glee.

"Oho!" said the black, as he passed his huge arms around the little
fellow, and smoothed down his scanty night-dress as if it were the
plumage of a bird, "oho! little Master Henri loves his Banou, eh? Good,
he take bath."

Bearing his charge out upon the quarter-deck beneath the awning, he
pulled a large tub from under a boat turned upside down over the deck
cabin; and then, while the young monkey had scrambled round to his back,
and was beating a tattoo with his tiny fists on his shoulders, Banou
caught up a bucket and proceeded to draw water from over the side, which
he dashed into the tub. When he had nearly filled the tub he felt around
with his black paws as delicately as if he was about to seize a
musquito, and, clutching the kicking legs with one hand, he spun the
little fellow a somersault over his head, and skinning off at the same
time his diminutive frock, plunged him into the sparkling brine, singing
the while in a laughing chant:

"Dis is the way strong Banou catch him,
First he strip and den he 'plash him;
Henri he jump and 'cream for his moder,
But Banou lub him more dan his broder!"

Here the brawny nurse would souse him head over heels in the sparkling
water, lift him up at every dip, rub his black nose all over him, making
mock bites at the little legs and stomach; and, finally, holding him
aloft, dripping, laughing, and st