're goin' through this business as slick as we did at the mill."

Darius held the Avenger straight for the enemy, and when we were come
within half a musket-shot I heard the hail we had been expecting:

"Sloop ahoy!"

"Ay, ay, sir!" Darius cried.

"What craft is that?"

"An oyster pungy with part of a cargo which we're hopin' to sell, sir.
Can we do any business with you?"

"Heave to, an' lay alongside until daylight."

"Very well, sir," the old man cried, and then he let fly a lot of
orders to us of the crew which would have shamed a landsman to utter,
for of a verity no sailor could have understood them.

However, by giving no heed to what he said, we brought the Avenger
into position; but I soon saw that the tide was setting us away from
the Britisher, and suggested that we let go the anchor.

To this the old man would not agree.

"Obey orders if you break owners," he said with a grin, and I knew he
had some reason for thus being so foolish.

However, to make a long story short, we remained hove to until day
dawned, and then we were within a cable's length of a large ship,
while a mile or more further up the bay was the vessel that had first
hailed.

"Ahoy on the sloop!" came from the second ship, and Darius replied in
the tone of a countryman:

"Ay, ay, sir."

"Why are you loafing around here?"

"We came down to sell some oysters; but the chap on t'other craft told
us to heave to, an' we've been driftin' 'round here ever since. I
dunno whether we ought'er go back to him, or try to sell you what few
bushels we've got."

"When did you take them?"

"Last night. Oh, they're fresh enough, if that's what you're thinkin'
of. Don't you want to try 'em?"

"What is the price?"

"Ten cents a bushel; that's what we ought'er get up to Baltimore, an'
I reckon we might knock off a little if we don't have to run there to
unload."

Then, without waiting for permission, Darius began giving us fool
orders intended to get the pungy under way, and we came lumbering
around under the ship's starboard, where we could have been blown into
the next world with no more labor than the lighting of a match.

Darius lifted one of the hatches and leaped into the hold ordering us
to "bear a hand lively that the gentlemen might taste the oysters,"
and passing up a basket full, shouting to me so loudly that he could
readily have been heard on the ship:

"Pass 'em over the side, Bubby dear, an' be careful how you fool
'ro