"Hate him like pison—I knowed it from the first."
"Well, what of it?"
"Nothing—only as I've took a notion to him, and he kinder likes me, supposing you jest give in a trifle, and let the chap alone. I shall be much obleeged to you if you will."
Thrasher turned on his heel, saying, with assumed carelessness, for he did not like the gleam of those gray eyes, "Well, well, we'll talk about that another time."
"Aye, aye," responded the sailor, with a nod of the head, which had a meaning in it that Thrasher did not like.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BOX OF JEWELS.
"I'll have an end of this," said Thrasher, as he went into the cabin restless and anxious. Throwing himself on the locker, he began muttering to himself. "As for keeping this child to hang around my neck like a millstone, I never will. He's old enough to remember every thing; and if the negro tells tales he'll be sure to cherish them. What possesses Rice to rise up against me in this way? If he'd been quiet, I'd have had 'em both under water before half the voyage was over."
Thrasher lay awhile revolving these thoughts in his mind, without arriving at any satisfactory conclusion. At last, a new anxiety seized upon him; he started up, and went to the closet set into the wall, in which he had seen Captain Mason secure the box of jewels that Jube had placed in his keeping.
"It's fortunate I secured this," he muttered, taking a key from his vest pocket, and fitting it into the lock. "He didn't know I was on the watch, careful as he was. Ha, it's all here! and that nigger knows it as well as I do. He'll tell, and then Rice'll take another hitch in the eternal rope that's being knotted around me. I would give any thing to know exactly what the fellow is at, but I won't ask questions, that's against my principles; they let out too much."