their skiff hum! It was the king and the duke.

So I wilted right down onto the planks then, and give up; and it was
all I could do to keep from crying.

CHAPTER XXX

When they got aboard the king went for me, and shook me by the collar,
and says:

"Tryin' to give us the slip, was ye, you pup! Tired of our company,
hey?"

I says:

"No, your majesty, we warn't--_please_ don't, your majesty!"

"Quick, then, and tell us what _was_ your idea, or I'll shake the
insides out o' you!"

"Honest, I'll tell you everything just as it happened, your majesty.
The man that had a-holt of me was very good to me, and kept saying he
had a boy about as big as me that died last year, and he was sorry to
see a boy in such a dangerous fix; and when they was all took by
surprise by finding the gold, and made a rush for the coffin, he lets
go of me and whispers, 'Heel it now, or they'll hang ye, sure!' and I
lit out. It didn't seem no good for _me_ to stay--I couldn't do
nothing, and I didn't want to be _hung_ if I could get away. So I
never stopped running till I found the canoe; and when I got here I
told Jim to hurry, or they'd catch me and hang me yet, and said I was
afeard you and the duke wasn't alive now, and I was awful sorry, and
so was Jim, and was awful glad when we see you coming; you may ask Jim
if I didn't." Jim said it was so; and the king told him to shut up,
and said, "Oh, yes, it's _mighty_ likely!" and shook me up again, and
said he reckoned he'd drownd me. But the duke says:

"Leggo the boy, you old idiot! Would _you_ 'a' done any different?
Did you inquire around for _him_ when you got loose? I don't remember
it."

So the king let go of me, and begun to cuss that town and everybody in
it. But the duke says:

"You better a blame' sight give _yourself_ a good cussing, for you're
the one that's entitled to it most. You hain't done a thing from the
start that had any sense in it, except coming out so cool and cheeky
with that imaginary blue-arrow mark. That _was_ bright--it was right
down bully; and it was the thing that saved us. For if it hadn't been
for that they'd 'a' jailed us till them Englishmen's baggage come--and
then--the penitentiary, you bet! But that trick took 'em to the
graveyard, and the gold done us a still bigger kindness; for if the
excited fools hadn't let go all holts and made that rush to get a look
we'd 'a' slept in our cravats to-night--cravats warranted to _wear_,
too--longer tha