To tell the truth, I had no longer any hope of life. Glen, for all his winks and smiles, would stop short of no cruelty. Peter Tortue quietly polished his knife upon his thigh. He was a big Brittany man, with shrewd eyes and an unchanging face. The rest squatted and stared curiously at me. The light of the lantern fell upon their callous faces, they were lookers-on at a show, of which perhaps, they had seen the like before, they were not concerned in this affair of the Royal Fortune nor how it ended.
"So you told no one."
"No one."
I closed my eyes and leaned back against the partition. I was utterly helpless in their hands, and I hoped they would be quick. I remember that I regretted very much I could send no word to the girl at Merchant's Rock, and that I was very glad she had not delayed her music till tomorrow night, but both regret and gladness were of a numbed and languid kind.
Then Glen asked me another question, and it spurred my will to alertness.
"How did you know that I was quartermaster on the Royal Fortune?"
I could not remind him that he had let the ship's name drop from his lips four years ago. It would be as much as to say that Helen had told me. It would confess that I had spoken with her of the Royal Fortune. Yet I must answer, and without the least show of hesitation. I caught at the first plausible reason which occurred to me. I said: "Cullen Mayle told me," and that answer saved my life. For Glen remarked, "Yes, he knew," and nodded to Tortue: Tortue lifted the knife in his hand, and again I closed my eyes. But the next thing I heard was a snap as the blade shut into the handle, and the next thing after that Tortue's voice deliberately speaking:
"George Glen, you never had the brains of a louse. You can smirk and wriggle, and you're handy with a weapon, but, you never had no brains."
I opened my eyes pretty wide at that, and I saw that the three younger faces were now kindled out of their sluggishness. It was that mention of Cullen Mayle which had wrought the change. These three took no particular interest in the Royal Fortune, but they had every interest in the doings of Cullen Mayle, and they now alertly followed all that Tortue said. George Glen leaned forward.
"Who's cap'en here, Peter Tortue?" said he. "Was you with us on the Sierra Leone River? Nat Roper there, Blads, you James Skyrm, speak up, lads, was he with us?"