“Humph! how could you see this dark night?”
“I couldn’t see, I heard. Her voice is as sweet as the softest stop in the grand organ at Amsterdam, the one they call the ‘angel’s voice.’ ”
“What do you want for the whole lot?” asks the Englishman, trying to appear indifferent, and attempting the tone of a man making a bargain at a haberdasher’s.
“A thousand crowns.”
“Three hundred,” answers Chester, shortly.
“Five hundred crowns, anyway.”
“Three hundred in silver,” and the young captain opens a locker in his cabin and produces a bag of carolus guilders. “Better take this in hand,” he says, “than bargain on the shore, with the chance of being captured and strung up. Three hundred for the whole lot, women, boat, everything, and I take the goods off your hands!”
“What do you want to do with them?”
“That’s my business,” says the Englishman, looking once more over the papers he has taken from the dead Spaniard or Italian, for the dress and appearance of the dead man indicates that he is such. “And I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” continues Guy, “if this matter turns out as it may, I’ll make it two hundred more on my next return from England.”
“Well, the plunder is yours, only count the money down.”