held, clenched, behind my back, with the letter, folded small, within
it--while a voice murmured in my ear:

"Your letter, monsieur?"

I opened my fingers, and felt the missive gently abstracted.

"Thank God for that opportunity!" thought I fervently, as O'Gorman said:

"Ask him if he has plenty of provisions and water aboard."

I at once saw the villain's game: he was going to replenish the brig's
stores by plundering the barque, thus rendering it unnecessary to touch
at any port. So, while translating the question to the French skipper,
I took it upon myself to very tersely mention my suspicions, and to
recommend the adoption of any precautionary measures that might suggest
themselves.

"The bulk of my stores is stowed in the after hold," answered the French
skipper, "but there is about enough in the lazarette to carry us to Cape
Town. If they can be persuaded to be satisfied with what is there only,
we shall come to no great harm."

"You hear?" said I, turning to O'Gorman again, quite certain, by this
time, of his inability to understand a single word of French; "they are
very short of provisions, having only sufficient in their lazarette to
carry them to Cape Town."

"Is that all?" demanded the Irishman. "Thin, be jabers, _I'm_ sorry for
thim, for there's a good manny miles bechuxt here and Cape Town, and I'm
afraid they'll be mortial hungry before they get there. For I'm goin'
to help mesilf to everything ateable that the barque carries, and so ye
may tell the skipper--bad cess to him for a mismanagin' shpalpeen! Whoy
didn't he lay in stores enough to carry him to the ind of his v'yage?
And ye may tell him, too, to start all hands to get those stores on deck
in a hurry; our own lads will have enough to do in lookin' afther
everybody, and seein' that none of the Frenchies thries to play anny
tricks wid us."

I translated the gist of these remarks to the French captain, and at the
same time gave him a hint to exhibit a proper amount of righteous
indignation over the robbery; which he did to perfection, wringing his
hands, rumpling his hair, and pacing the deck with the air of a madman
while he poured out anathemas enough upon O'Gorman and his gang to sink
the entire party to the nethermost depths of perdition. Meanwhile, the
French crew, under the supervision of the mates--with Price watching the
operation to see that a clean sweep was made of the lazarette--went to
work to pass the stores on deck; an