The last thing I had heard as we ran was poor Sim Muzzy screaming for help.
"Who—wh-wh-o—wh-what—were th-they?" I gasped out.
"I believe it to have been a press-gang," Arnold replied. He, too, was gasping for breath, but he better controlled his voice.
After a time he added, "Poor Sim! I fear that he is now on his way into the service of the royal navy of Spain."
"But," I returned, "they cannot hold an American citizen."
"Lawfully," said he, "they cannot."
"Then we'll soon have Sim out again."
To this, he did not reply. He said merely, "You and I, Joe, must keep it a secret between us that I speak their language."
We lay a long time in the garden, with the stars shining above us and yellow lights streaming out of the house, and I thought of how skillfully Arnold Lamont had concealed his interest in what Gleazen and Matterson had said in a language they thought none of us could understand. But when the racing and shouting had gone, and come, and gone again, and when we both were convinced that all danger was past, we rose and stretched ourselves and went up to the house and knocked.