Rewards and Fairies - Penn State University

Rudyard Kipling
We warned him to keep away, but he fell aboard us, and up Berthe, is it? What’s your share in her, Pharaoh?”
climbed his Jabbering red-caps. We couldn’t endure any ‘“Only half owner, but the cargo’s mine.”
more—indeed we couldn’t. We went at ‘em with all we could ‘“That’s bad,” he says. “I’ll do what I can, but you shouldn’t
lay hands on. It didn’t last long. They was fifty odd to our have fought us.” ‘“Steve,” I says, “you aren’t ever going to
twenty-three. Pretty soon I heard the cutlasses thrown down report our little fall-out as a fight! Why, a Revenue cutter ‘ud
and some one bellowed for the sacri captain.
laugh at it!”
‘“Here I am!” I says. “I don’t suppose it makes any odds to ‘“So’d I if I wasn’t in the Republican Navy,” he says. “But
you thieves, but this is the United States brig Berth Aurette.” two of our men are dead, d’ye see, and I’m afraid I’ll have to
‘“My aunt!” the man says, laughing. “Why is she named take you to the Prize Court at Le Havre.”
that?”
‘“Will they condemn my ‘baccy?” I asks.
‘“Who’s speaking?” I said. ’Twas too dark to see, but I ‘“To the last ounce. But I was thinking more of the ship.
thought I knew the voice.
She’d make a sweet little craft for the Navy if the Prize Court
‘“Enseigne de Vaisseau Estephe L’Estrange,” he sings out, ‘ud let me have her,” he says.
and then I was sure.
‘Then I knew there was no hope. I don’t blame him—a
‘“Oh!” I says. “It’s all in the family, I suppose, but you have man must consider his own interests, but nigh every dollar I
done a fine day’s work, Stephen.”
had was in ship or cargo, and Steve kept on saying, “You
‘He whips out the binnacle-light and holds it to my face. shouldn’t have fought us.”
He was young L’Estrange, my full cousin, that I hadn’t seen ‘Well, then, the lugger took us to Le Havre, and that being
since the night the smack sank off Telscombe Tye—six years the one time we did want a British ship to rescue us, why, o’
before.
course we never saw one. My cousin spoke his best for us at
‘“Whew!” he says. “That’s why she was named for Aunt the Prize Court. He owned he’d no right to rush alongside in
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