‘Why, Tommy Nixon,’ said Rumbold, ‘I marvel that a man of thy discretion should go forth with a handful of salt to put upon the tail of an old sparrow like myself. Why, the pearls are all gone in the piragua, and I trust that by this time my agent in Jamaica hath them under very advantageous lock and key.’
Rumbold said this with such perfect coolness, and with so frank an air of simple candour, that I hastily passed my hand inside my doublet to feel if the leathern pouch were really there, or if I had dreamed the whole matter. No, there was the precious burden, pressed against my bosom. I looked warily at Nixon; he seemed disturbed and vexed.
‘’Twere better not trifle, Harry Rumbold,’ he made reply; ‘come, give me a ransom, and I shall let you off the rest. I can twirl Jerry round my thumb; he is only a strong animal and a good sailor, and as for Chiffon Rouge, he is captain but for our own reasons. Pay me a ransom, old Harry, and all shall go well with thee; come, only a small handful of the seed pearls. Thou hast got them cheap, thou old thief, thou knowest thou hast—come.’
‘I tell you,’ answered Rumbold, ‘I have not a pearl in my possession. Search me an’ you like. You are too clever, Tommy Nixon, and you cheated yourself when you took me aboard. Search me, man, and be satisfied.’
Nixon and Rumbold looked stedfastly into each other’s eyes for the space of a minute. The former, at length, muttered, as slowly as if the words were dragged from him by some other force than that of his own will, ‘That thou hast not a pearl in thy possession—that, Harry Rumbold, will be seen!’
But just at this moment, a burst of discordant singing, led on by the bellowing voice of Jerry, drowned in a moment all the clatter of conversation, and the jingling and clashing of pannikin and glass. What were the words or what was the air of the song, it would be difficult to say, seeing that every man sang according to his own peculiar liking; but Jerry’s voice rose above all, hallooing this elegant stanza of a ditty common among certain of the Buccaneers—
‘Haul, cheerily, jades of Jamaica,
And trulls of Tortugas also,
The wenches have hold of the tow-rope,
And across the salt sea we do go—