“Well, after we’d cut the niggers’ bonds, an’ rubbed ’em good to restore the circulation, we come near decidin’ they was dead an’ heavin’ of ’em overboard agin. But Doc wouldn’t give up. He brought out the medicine box, an’ found that all the stuff he had left was two bottles of pills, one of ’em Nux Vomica, an’ the other Bryonia. I was workin’ over one of the niggers, an’ Doc he hands me one o’ the bottles an says: ‘Nux.’ So I emptied the bottle into the dead man’s mouth, an’ by Jinks, Sam, he come around all right, and is alive an’ kickin’ today. Cap’n Gay dosed the other one with the Bryonia, an’ it fetched him in no time. I won’t swear it were the pills, you know; but the fact is the niggers lived.
“Afterwards we found the critters couldn’t speak a word of English, ner tell us even what their names were. So we called one Nux, and the other Bryonia, accordin’ to the medicine that had saved their lives, an’ they’ve answered to those names ever since.”
The blacks were gentle and good natured, and being grateful for their rescue they had refused to leave the ship at the end of the voyage, and were now permanent fixtures of the “Flipper.”
“They are not slaves, are they?” I asked, when I had listened to this story.
“Mercy, no!” exclaimed Uncle Naboth. “They’re as free as any of us, an’ draw their wages reg’lar. Also they’re as faithful as the day is long, an’ never get drunk or mutinous. So it were a lucky day when we picked ’em up.”
Bryonia stood fully six feet in height, and was muscular and wonderfully strong. He had a fine face, too, and large and intelligent eyes. Nux was much shorter, and inclined to be fat. But he was not a bit lazy, for all that, and accomplished an immense amount of work in so cheerful a manner that never a complaint was laid at his door. Not a sailor could climb aloft with more agility or a surer foot, and both Nux and Bryonia were absolutely fearless in the face of danger.
Although these men were black they were not negroes, but belonged to a branch of the Malay race. Their hair was straight, their noses well formed and their eyes very expressive and intelligent. The English they had picked up from the crew, however, was spoken with an accent not unlike that peculiar to the African negroes, but with a softer and more sibilant tone.