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 than _we'd_ need 'em."

They was still a minute--thinking; then the king says, kind of absent-minded like:

"Mf!  And we reckoned the _niggers_ stole it!"

That made me squirm!

"Yes," says the duke, kinder slow and deliberate and sarcastic, "_we_ did."

After about a half a minute the king drawls out:

"Leastways, I did."

The duke says, the same way:

"On the contrary, I did."

The king kind of ruffles up, and says:

"Looky here, Bilgewater, what'r you referrin' to?"

The duke says, pretty brisk:

"When it comes to that, maybe you'll let me ask, what was _you_ referring to?"

"Shucks!" says the king, very sarcastic; "but I don't know--maybe you was asleep, and didn't know what you was about."

The duke bristles up now, and says:

"Oh, let _up_ on this cussed nonsense; do you take me for a blame' fool? Don't you reckon I know who hid that money in that coffin?"

"_Yes_, sir!  I know you _do_ know, because you done it yourself!"

"It's a lie!"--and the duke went for him.  The king sings out:

"Take y'r hands off!--leggo my throat!--I take it all back!"

The duke says:

"Well, you just own up, first, that you _did_ hide that money there, intending to give me the slip one of these days, and come back and dig it up, and have it all to yourself."

"Wait jest a minute, duke--answer me this one question, honest and fair; if you didn't put the money there, say it, and I'll b'lieve you, and take back everything I said."

"You old scoundrel, I didn't, and you know I didn't.  There, now!"

"Well, then, I b'lieve you.  But answer me only jest this one more--now _don't_ git mad; didn't you have it in your mind to hook the money and hide it?"

The duke never said nothing for a little bit; then he says:

"Well, I don't care if I _did_, I didn't _do_ it, anyway.  But you not only had it in mind to do it, but you _done_ it."

"I wisht I never die if I done it, duke, and that's honest.  I won't say I warn't goin' to do it, because I _was_; but you--I mean somebody--got in ahead o' me."

"It's a lie!  You done it, and you got to _say_ you done it, or--"

The king began to gurgle, and then he gasps out:

"'Nough!--I _own up!_"

I was very glad to hear him say that; it made me feel much more easier than what I was feeling before.  So the duke took his hands off and says:

"If you ever deny it again I'll drown you.  It's _well_ for you to set there and blubber like a baby--it's fitten for you, after the way you've acted. I never see such an old ostrich for wanting to gobble everything--and I a-trusting you all the time, like you was my own father.  You ought to been ashamed of yourself to stand by and hear it saddled on to a lot of poor niggers, and you never say a word for 'em.  It makes me feel ridiculous to think I was soft enough to _believe_ that rubbage.  Cuss you, I can see now why you was so anxious to make up the deffisit--you wanted to get what money I'd got out of the Nonesuch and one thing or another, and scoop it _all_!"

The king says, timid, and still a-snuffling:

"Why, duke, it was you that said make up the deffisit; it warn't me."

"Dry up!  I don't want to hear no more out of you!" says the duke.  "And _now_ you see what you GOT by it.  They've got all their own money back, and all of _ourn_ but a shekel or two _besides_.  G'long to bed, and don't you deffersit _me_ no more deffersits, long 's _you_ live!"

So the king sneaked into the wigwam and took to his bottle for comfort, and before long the duke tackled HIS bottle; and so in about a half an hour they was as thick as thieves again, and the tighter they got the lovinger they got, and went off a-snoring in each other's arms.  They both got powerful mellow, but I noticed the king didn't get mellow enough to forget to remember to not deny about hiding the money-bag again.  That made me feel easy and satisfied.  Of course when they got to snoring we had a long gabble, and I told Jim everything.