"Ah me," sighed Neddie Benson, "I'm glad they're gone. It's funny Falk ain't quite a light man nor yet a real dark man."
"Gone!" Davie repeated ominously. "I wish they was gone." He looked up at the furled sails. "They ain't—and neither is we."
"There's work to be done," said Roger, "and we must be about it. Leave the nets as they are. Stack the muskets in the waist, pile the pikes handy by the deckhouse, and all lay aft. We'd best have a few words together before we begin."
A moment later, as I was busy with the pikes, Roger came to me and murmured, "There's something wrong afoot. The after-hatch has been pried off."
I noticed the hatch once more the next time I passed it, and I remembered seeing the man from Boston emerge from the hold. But there was so much else to be attended to that it was a long, long time before I thought of it again.
When we had done as Roger told us, we gathered round him where he waited, leaning against the cabin, with his hands in his pockets.
"We're all in the same boat together, men," he began. "We knew what the chances were when we took them. If you wish to have it so, in the eyes of the law we're pirates and mutineers, and since Falk seems to have got away with what money there was on board, things may go hard with us. But—" he spoke the word with stern emphasis—"but we've acted for the best, and I think there's no one here wants to try to square things up by putting Falk in command again. How about it?"
"Square things up, is it?" cried Blodgett. "The dirty villain would have us hanged at the nearest gallows for all his buttery words."
"Exactly!" Roger threw back his head. "And when we get to Salem, I can promise you there's no man here but will be better off for doing as he's done so far."
"But whar's all dat money gone?" the cook demanded unexpectedly.