The candles burned with a steady, spear-shaped flame, undeviating, motionless, so that the shadows were cast upon the paneling of the cabin walls in solid blocks like streaks of a darker coloring in the polished woodwork. The air was so still that we could hear the sea-birds calling down the inlet, the seethe and suck of water about the rudder, the splash of a fish, the patter of the feet of the watch.
Mistress O'Donnell had retired to her stateroom, with the appearance of the wine, for both her father and Murray held punctiliously to the polite usage of society in this respect, Colonel O'Donnell, I think, because he dreaded lest she should witness one of his periodical bouts when he would saturate himself to a state of insensibility, and Peter and I must carry him to his berth, as we had done the first night he came aboard the Royal James.
My great uncle, for want of other diversion, had undertaken to teach Peter to play chess, with some saturnine advice and comment from the Irishman; and to my amusement—as likewise to Murray's, I must admit—Peter proved himself a most redoubtable tyro, and once he had been coached in the rudiments presented a shrewd defensive gambit.
"Check at last!" exclaimed my relative, sinking back in his chair—of the four of us, he alone wore coat and stock and still contrived to maintain an air of cool well-being in that humid atmosphere. "You pushed me, Peter. Stap me, but you did! I'd not like to match my game with yours six months from now. Had you developed your queen's knight eight moves back— But 'tis futile to argue concerning what might have been. As well seek to prognosticate the future of our own lives."
Peter giggled and muttered that he was "no goodt, neen."
"I would we might say, 'Check!' in this weary coil we are caught in," grumbled O'Donnell. "I see not that we are any farther forward with your confederates yonder."
He waved his hand out of the stern-window.
"They carried away their four hundred thousand pounds, but every man of them was as glum in the face as though 'twas so many bodeens instead of a prince's ransom. St. Patrick! When I think of what four hundred thousand pounds would do with the English Parliamentmen that will be selling their souls to whoever bids them the highest!"
"We have paid a price, chevalier," returned my great-uncle. "If we receive what we purchased, well and good. If not——"
He spread out his hands in deprecation.