Part 14 (2/2)

”Humph!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Montague, ”but the weather _is_ warm just now; at least it seems so to me--so warm that I should not be surprised if a thunder squall were to burst upon us ere long.”

”Not a pleasant place to be caught in a squall,” returned the other, gazing through the voluminous clouds of smoke which he emitted at several coral reefs, whose ragged edges just rose to the level of the calm sea without breaking its mirror-like surface; ”I've seen one or two fine vessels caught that way, just hereabouts, and go right down in the middle of the breakers.”

Montague smiled, and the commander-in-chief of the Sandy Cove army fired innumerable broadsides from his mouth with redoubled energy.

”That is not a cheering piece of information,” said he, ”especially when one has reason to believe that a false man stands at the helm.”

Montague uttered the latter part of his speech in a subdued earnest voice, and the matter-of-fact Ole turned his eyes slowly towards the man at the wheel; but observing that he who presided there was a short, fat, commonplace, and uncommonly jolly-looking seaman, he merely uttered a grunt and looked at Montague inquiringly.

”Nay, I mean not the man who actually holds the spokes of the wheel, but he who guides the s.h.i.+p.”

Thorwald glanced at Gascoyne, whose figure was dimly visible in the fore part of the s.h.i.+p, and then looking at Montague in surprise shook his head gravely, as if to say--

”I'm still in the dark--go on.”

”Can Mr Thorwald put out his pipe for a few minutes and accompany me to the cabin? I would have a little converse on this matter in private.”

Ole hesitated.

”Well, then,” said the other, smiling, ”you may take the pipe with you, although it is against rules to smoke in my cabin--but I'll make an exception in your case.”

Ole smiled, bowed, and, thanking the captain for his courtesy, descended to the cabin along with him and sat down on a sofa in the darkest corner of it. Here he smoked vehemently, while his companion, a.s.suming a rather mysterious air, said in an under tone--

”You have heard, of course, that the pirate Durward has been seen, or heard of, in those seas?”

Ole nodded.

”Has it ever struck you that this Gascoyne, as he calls himself, knows more about the pirate than he chooses to tell?”

”Never,” replied Ole. Indeed nothing ever did _strike_ the stout commander-in-chief of the forces. All new ideas came to him by slow degrees, and did not readily find admission to his perceptive faculties.

But when they did gain an entrance into his thick head, nothing was ever known to drive them out again. As he did not seem inclined to comment on the hint thrown out by his companion, Montague continued, in a still more impressive tone--

”What would you say if this Gascoyne himself turned out to be the pirate?”

The idea being a simple one, and the proper course to follow being rather obvious, Ole replied with unwonted prompt.i.tude--”Put him in irons, of course, and hang him as soon as possible.”

Montague laughed. ”Truly that would be a vigorous way of proceeding; but as I have no proof of the truth of my suspicions, and as the man is my guest at present, as well as my pilot, it behoves me to act more cautiously.”

”Not at all; by no means; you're quite wrong, captain; (which is the natural result of being young--all young people go more or less;) it is clearly your duty to catch a pirate anyhow you can, as fast as you can, and kill him without delay.”

Here the sanguinary Thorwald paused to draw and puff into vitality the pipe which was beginning to die down, and Montague asked--

”But how d'you know he is the pirate?”

”Because you said so,” replied his friend.

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