"Mr. Gleazen," said Captain North, "I am afraid we must show her our heels."
"If I could lay my hands on the lean neck of William MacDougald," Gleazen growled, "I'd wring his head clean off."
"She unquestionably is bearing down on us."
"She is."
"And she knows—"
"She knows," cried Gleazen, "all that Willie MacDougald can tell her of casks and farina and shackles and lumber for extra decks."
"And of false papers with which you so carefully provided yourself?"
Gideon North's face all this time was as sober as a judge's, but now I saw that he was deliberately tormenting Gleazen with the various preparations the man had made for that unholy traffic in slaves.
Although Gleazen himself by now perceived it, his wrath turned on our erstwhile cabin boy rather than on Gideon North. He swore vilely. "Aye," he cried, "we must run—run or hang. And all for the word of a prying, cursing, eavesdropping young rooster that I might have wrung the neck of, any day for months past. If ever I lay hands on his ape's throat—"
"I gather, sir," Captain North dryly interposed, "you'll use him harshly."