"That means rum," he commented. "Plenty o' rum, says you. Jest leave it to Ben, captain."
He ducked and scraped again and skipped off into the companionway with a kind of wiggle like a self-conscious child.
"My steward," remarked my relative. "He will be at your disposal for anything you require, Robert—yours, too, friend Peter. You will find the negroes equally anxious to please."
"The man is a half-wit, is he not?" I asked.
"A natural, yes," assented Murray, tasting the chocolate.
"I should think it would be dangerous to have one so simple in such close proximity to you."
My great-uncle smiled.
"You are quite, quite wrong, my boy. It is for the very reason that the man is incapable of spying that I use him. He is more valuable for my purposes than the most intelligent member of the crew."
He broke off.
"This chocolate is by no means so well brewed as Silver's. An extraordinary fellow, that, monstrously clever—exactly the sort of man, Robert, I never permit to remain near me. Indeed, if you possess the patience and the interest to analyze the composition of my officers and crew you will observe, I believe, that there is not an independently clever man amongst them. Aye, and if you find me a clever man aboard the Royal James—yourself and friend Peter excepted, of course—I will thank you to point him out to me, and I will straightway make a present of him to Flint, who must have half a dozen of the Walrus' crew who esteem themselves equally capable with him of commanding her."