Strange what a little thing a man's life hangs on
sometimes--a single word! Here you are, sitting unsuspicious before me,
and you may let out something unbeknown to you that would settle your
hash. Not that I have any ill-feeling. I have no feelings. If the
skipper had said, 'O, bosh!' and had turned his back on me, he would not
have gone three steps towards his bed; but he stood there and stared.
And now the job was to get him off the deck when he was no longer wanted
there.
"'We are just trying to make out if that object there is a canoe or a
log,' says he to Mr. Jones.
"Mr Jones had come up, lounging as carelessly as when he went below.
While the skipper was jawing about boats and drifting logs. I asked by
signs, from behind, if I hadn't better knock him on the head and drop
him quietly overboard. The night was slipping by, and we had to go. It
couldn't be put off till next night no more. No. No more. And do you
know why?"
Schomberg made a slight negative sign with his head. This direct appeal
annoyed him, jarred on the induced quietude of a great talker forced
into the part of a listener and sunk in it as a man sinks into slumber.
Mr. Ricardo struck a note of scorn.
"Don't know why? Can't you guess? No? Because the boss had got hold of
the skipper's cash-box by then. See?"
CHAPTER SEVEN
"A common thief!"
Schomberg bit his tongue just too late, and woke up completely as he saw
Ricardo retract his lips in a cat-like grin; but the companion of "plain
Mr.
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