The one was a shortish man, coarse of figure, and whose
browned features and figured hands bespoke him a sailor; the other
was delicate of figure, with pale, careworn countenance and nervous
demeanour. Upon the marble slab, on which they rested their elbows,
sat a bottle of old Madeira, from which they sipped leisurely, now
and then modulating their conversation into whispers. Then the man
of brown features spoke out more at ease, as if they had concluded
the preliminaries of some important business.
"Well, well,--now isn't that strange?" said he, sighing as he spread
his brawny hands upon the white marble. "Natur's a curious mystery,
though" (he looked intently at the other): "why, more nor twenty
years have rolled over since I did that bit of a good turn, and here
I is the very same old Jack Hardweather, skipper of the Maggy Bell.
But for all that--and I'd have folks know it!--the Maggy's as trim a
little craft as ever lay to on a sou'-easter; and she can show as
clean a pair of heels as any other--barring her old top timbers
complain now and then--to the best cutter as ever shook Uncle Sam's
rags." His hard features softened, as in the earnest of his heart he
spoke. He extended his hand across the table, grasping firmly that
of his nervous friend, and continued--"And it was no other witch
than the taunt Maggy Bell that landed that good woman safe on the
free sands of old Bahama!" The Maggy, he tells the other, is now at
the wharf, where the good wife, Molly Hardweather, keeps ship while
the boys take a turn ashore.
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