"So are you, if you told the truth of it," Miles took him up. "You'd not have Goodman Billington hear you vaporing so for all the silver crowns in England, and if Goodwife Billington came by and heard you, she'd cuff your ears smartly."
Francis's sallow face reddened. "Much she would!" he said angrily. "I'll show you I be no milksop to stand in fear of my father and mother. Maybe now you think I'd not dare to—" he paused, his eyes half-closed, while he tried to concoct some peculiarly wicked sounding project—"to take some of my father's gunpowder and make squibs?" he concluded, with a triumphant look at his companion.
"No, I don't think you dare," Miles answered stolidly.
"Come, then, I'll show you," the other cried, and headed for the companion way that descended beneath the quarter-deck.
Four steps down, and, passing through a narrow door, they entered into the stifle and stir of the "great" or main cabin. On every hand murmured the ceaseless confusion that always filled the straitened space: underfoot, sometimes with fretful wrangling, children were at play; women were passing to and from their cabins, or dressing their meat for the evening meal at the long table; upon the benches several sick men, whose heavy voices were audible through the shriller tones of those about them, sat together in talk. Over all, the brightness from the narrow skylights fell wanly, so the corners of the low apartment were dusky with thick shadows, and the dim outline of the great timbers overhead, and the slits of doors into the double tier of little cabins adjoining, could only just be made out.
Miles was glad of the half light, for he knew well that if his mother should chance to be there and see him with Francis, she would make a pretext of some task to call him to her. He caught sight of her now, as she stood by the table in speech with Constance Hopkins, and, almost treading on Francis's heels in his hurry, he slipped into the Billingtons' cabin.
It was the veriest closet of a room in which he found himself, black, save for a glint of sickly light that crept through an opening in the door, by which Miles contrived presently to discern the unmade bunk along the wall, the mattress, still spread out upon the floor, and the iron kettle and other vague household stuff that littered untidily the narrow space. Comparing it with his father's ordered cabin, he recalled his mother's indignant comment to Mistress Hopkins, that Ellen Billington was a poor, thriftless body, who would better be tidying her quarters than gossiping with her neighbors.
"Now you'll see what I dare, Master Miles," Francis broke in, as, with much panting, he dragged from beneath the bunk a small keg. "This is gunpowder, if you be not afraid of the sight of it."
"It does not take much courage to touch gunpowder," said Miles, bending forward from the bunk, where he had seated himself, and plunging his fist into the keg. "Let's see your squibs, Francis."