In what sort of a company was I, then, where mere seamen
wore diamond rings and drank fine champagne from pewter pots?

The unpleasant and rough banter ceased on a word from Captain Black,
who called for lights, which were brought--rough, ready-made oil
flares, stuck in jugs and pots--and Hall gathered up his trinkets and
proceeded to lay them out with the well-simulated cunning of the
trader.

"That, Mister Black," he said, putting a miniature of exquisite finish
against the white fur on the floor, "is a portrait of the Emperor
Napoleon, sometime in the possession of the Empress Josephine; that is
a gold chain--he was eighteen carat--once the property of Don Carlos;
here is the pen with which Francis Drake wrote his last letter to the
Queen Elizabeth--beautiful goods as ever was, and cost moosh money!"

"To the dead with your much money," said the Captain with an angry
gesture, as he snatched the trinkets from him, and eyed them to my vast
surprise with the air of a practised connoisseur; "let's handle the
stuff, and don't gibber. How much for this?" He held up the miniature,
and admiration betrayed itself in his eyes.

"He was painted by Sir William Ross, and I sell him for two hundred
pounds, my Captain. Not a penny less, or I'm a ruined man!"

"The Jew a ruined man! Hark at him! Four-Eyes"--this to a great lanky
fellow who lay asleep in the corner--"the little Jew can't sell 'em
under two hundred, I reckon; oh, certainly not; why, of course. Here,
you, Splinters, pay him for a thick-skinned, thieving shark, and give
him a hundred for the others."

The boy Splinters, who was a black lad, seemingly about twelve years
old, came up at the word, and took a great canvas bag from a hook on
the wall. He counted three hundred gold pieces on the floor--pieces of
all coinages in Europe and America, as they appeared to be by their
faces, and Hall, who had squatted like the others, picked them up. Then
he asked a question, while the little black lad, who bore a look of
suffering on his worn face, stood waiting the Captain's word.

"Mister Captain, I shall have waiting for me at Plymouth to-morrow a
relic of the great John Hawkins, which, as I'm alive, you shouldn't
miss. I have heard them say that it is the very sword with which he cut
the Spaniards' beards. Since you have told me that you sail to-morrow,
I have thought, if you put me on your ship across to Plymouth, I could
show you the goods, and you shall have them che