"Perhaps," said Gleazen, thoughtfully, "Sim Muzzy, here, would like to go."
"Oh, yes," cried Sim, "I'm fair dying for a trip on dry land. Yes, indeed, I'd like to go. I'd like it mightily. You've always said, Mr. Gleazen, I was too thick to do harm. Oh, yes indeed!"
Matterson smiled and Captain Jones covered his mouth with his hand, but Gleazen gravely nodded.
"Well, Sim, go you shall," said he. "There ain't one of us here but is glad to see an honest man take his fling ashore, and Havana's a city for you. Such handsome women as ride about in their carriages! And such sights as you'll see in the streets! You'll be a wiser man e'er you come back to us, Sim. I swear, I'd like to go myself,—but not to-night! I ain't one to neglect business for pleasure."
When he shot a glance at Matterson and Captain Jones, my eyes followed his, and I saw that once more they had fixed their gaze on the top of the table. Now I was actually unable, so baffling had been their change of front, to make up my mind whether they were to be suspected or to be trusted.
"Well," said Gleazen, "we are all agreed. Lay down your orders, Seth. They'll carry them out to the last letter."
So Uncle Seth told me where to find Gideon North, and Neil Gleazen wrote it on a paper,—in Spanish, mind you!—and they put their heads together, every one, to think up such arguments as would induce Captain North to return, all with an appearance of enthusiasm that amazed me and might easily have put my suspicions to shame but for those other things that had happened.
"I'll be civil to him," Gleazen cried. "And you can tell him, too, that this is an honest voyage. We're to run no race with the king's cruisers, Joe."
"Aye," Captain Jones put in, "an able vessel and an honest voyage."