“What devilry has he been up to now?” he asked.
“Devilry! You’ve not heard, then? Why, we’ve got him safe under lock and key at Basseterre. He was tried last Wednesday, and he is to be hanged to-morrow morning.”
Captain and mate gave a shout of joy, which an instant later was taken up by the crew. Discipline was forgotten as they scrambled up through the break of the poop to hear the news. The New Englander was in the front of them with a radiant face turned up to Heaven, for he came of the Puritan stock.
“Sharkey to be hanged!” he cried. “You don’t know, Master Agent, if they lack a hangman, do you?”
“Stand back!” cried the mate, whose outraged sense of discipline was even stronger than his interest at the news. “I’ll pay that dollar, Captain Scarrow, with the lightest heart that ever I paid a wager yet. How came the villain to be taken?”
“Why, as to that, he became more than his own comrades could abide, and they took such a horror of him that they would not have him on the ship. So they marooned him upon the Little Mangles to the south of the Mysteriosa Bank, and there he was found by a Portobello trader, who brought him in. There was talk of sending him to Jamaica to be tried, but our good little Governor, Sir Charles Ewan, would not hear of it. ‘He’s my meat,’ said he, ‘and I claim the cooking of it.’ If you can stay till to-morrow morning at ten, you’ll see the joint swinging.”
“I wish I could,” said the captain, wistfully, “but I am sadly behind time now. I should start with the evening tide.”
“That you can’t do,” said the agent with decision. “The Governor is going back with you.”
“The Governor!”
“Yes. He’s had a dispatch from Government to return without delay. The fly-boat that brought it has gone on to Virginia. So Sir Charles has been waiting for you, as I told him you were due before the rains.”