The brown bread by
itself was very uninviting. Jack looked at a fat pig in the sty with
the eye of an ogre.

"Is it possible that the pirates could have stuffed some of the silks
and laces inside that huge porker, Hemming?" asked Jack, "I've heard of
some Flanders mares coming across the Channel stuffed up to the mouth
with lace," observed Adair.

"If it were possible, I think we should be right to search that pig,"
said Hemming, looking very hard at the unconscious object under
discussion, who went grunting on, asking somewhat loudly for food.

"There's no doubt about it," cried the mate of the merchantman. "She'll
make prime pork chops too."

The men had been meantime collecting sticks and lighting a fire: perhaps
they shrewdly guessed how the discussion might end.

"Here, butcher, you'll understand how to cut that pig up better than any
of us, so as to see what is in her inside," said Hemming. In a very
short time the fat pig was converted into pork, and some prime chops
were frizzling and hissing away before the fire. No laces or satins
were found inside, but instead some very delicious pig's fry, which,
under the circumstances, was perhaps more acceptable, especially as the
laces would, I think, have been spoilt had they been stuffed down the
pig's throat. The old women made a great lamentation when they saw
their pig being killed, but they were pacified by having some of the
chops presented to them, and then they produced some salt, and some
better bread, and some lemons, and plates, and knives, and forks, which
latter were of silver. Their female hearts evidently softened when they
found that no harm was done to them, and that killing the pig was a case
of necessity; and though they were not communicative, simply from want
of language to express themselves, they chattered away to each other
most vehemently. They spread a table in the hall where they had been
first seen, and seemed to wish to do their best to serve their uninvited
guests. The seamen made very merry over their feast of pig, though they
were rather in want of something to wash it down. Poor fellows! they
had neither tea nor coffee. At length the old ladies produced a jar of
arrack--very vile stuff it was, but the seamen would have drunk it
without stint had Mr Hemming allowed them. He, however, interposed,
and insisted on serving out only a little at a time to a few of the men.
The effect was such as to make him jump up and kick ove