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“What’s his bob-wig for?”

“Oh, that’s some of my mate’s nonsense. He thought planters wouldn’t want to buy a seaman, so he rigged the old captain up like a schoolmaster, and told him to say that he had always taught arithmetic. He’ll tell you he’s a schoolmaster, according to the mate’s commands; but he isn’t. He’s been a ship’s captain, I believe, and he helped me take observations on the voyage, and he seemed to know the river when he got in last night.”

There ensued some talk as to how many hogsheads of tobacco the convict was worth, and then Browne went forward to inspect the man and question him.

“What’s your name?” said the planter.

“James Palmer,” said Cappy, with his head down.

“Lawr!” muttered Polly under her breath.

“What’s your business?”

“Schoolmaster.”

“Come, don’t lie to me,” said Browne. “You are a sailor, or a captain maybe.”

This set the old fellow to trembling visibly, and Polly again said “Lawr!” loud enough for him to hear it and give her one fierce glance that quieted her.

“Who said I was a sailor, sir?”

“Captain Jackson.”

“That’s because you want a sailor,” stammered the convict. “Mighty little I ever knew about a ship till I got aboard this thing. Captain would ‘a’ told you I was a carpenter or a preacher if he thought that was what you wanted.”

The man spoke gaspingly, and a dim sense of having known him began to make its way into the mind of the planter. He was going to ask him where he had taught school, but all at once a rush of memories crowded his mind, and a strange suspicion came to him. He stood silent and staring at the convict half a minute. Then he walked round him, examining him from this side and that.

“Let me see your left hand, you villain!” he muttered, approaching the man.

The convict had kept his left hand shoved down under his belt. He shook now as with an ague, and made no motion.

“Out with it!” cried the planter.

Slowly the old man drew out his hand, showing that one joint of the little finger was gone.

“You liar!” said the planter, at the same time pulling the bob-wig from the convict’s head, and flinging it on the deck. “Your name is not James Palmer, but Jim Lewis, Captain Jim Lewis of the Red Rose–‘Black Jim,’ as everybody called you behind your back!”

Here Poll broke out again with “Lawr!” while Sanford Browne paused, fairly choked with emotion. Then he began again in a low voice:

“You thought I wouldn’t know you. I’ve been watching out for you these ten years, to send you to hell with my own hands! You robbed my poor mother of her boy.” The wretch cowered beneath the planter’s gaze, and essayed to deny his identity, but his voice died in his throat. Browne at length turned on his heel, and strode rapidly toward the captain.

“I’ll take him at the price you fixed,” he called out as he advanced.

The captain wondered what gold mine Browne had discovered in Cappy to make him so eager to accept the first price named. He for his part was equally eager to be rid of a convict whom he regarded as rather a dangerous man, so he said promptly, “He belongs to you,” and shook hands according to the custom in “closing a bargain.”

A moment later Black Jim Lewis, having regained his wits, rushed up to the captain entreating hoarsely not to be sold to Browne. “Now, don’t let him have me, Captain Jackson; for God’s sake, don’t, now! He’s my enemy. He’ll beat me and starve me to death. I’m one of your own kind; I’m a sea captain, and it’s a shame for you, a sea captain too, to sell me to a man that hates me and only wants to make me miserable. I’m ruinated anyhow, and you ought to take some pity on me.”

This plea for a freemasonry among sea captains had influence with the captain of the Nancy Jane. But he said, “W’y, Jim Lewis, I’ve sold to you the best master in the province of Maryland. You don’t know when you’re well off. Mr. Browne feeds his people well, and he never beats ’em bad, like the rest.”