"I will think," said the captain.
"I should think you'd never be so hard as to interfere with an honest man's living, captain?" pleaded Willie, gruffly. "It don't make no odds to you if we do give the customs a slip now and then and run a small cargo."
"A small cargo," said the captain, significantly. "You have been rather busy lately, if I mistake not, my friend!"
"Well, we have so," admitted Willie, candidly, "we have so, and," he added, desperately, "there be a cargo waiting for us now, captain."
"Now?" asked the captain.
"Ay, this very minute," assented Willie. "I've been down to see if it be all clear, and was going down to fetch the boys when you caught me—may the devil take ye!—and if it's there long we'll lose it and get the ship owners into trouble most like."
"Give the signal," said the captain. "I have a proposal to make."
"Stand behind that pillar, then," said Willie. "If the boys was to come up suddenly and see us like this they might think as I played them false, and drop us both without so much as a 'did' or 'didn't ye'!"
The captain concealed himself behind the pillar and Willie gave forth that screech which Jem and the captain had mistaken for the owls.
In three minutes dusky shadows came thronging from all parts of the chapel, and in five minutes about a score of strong, stalwart men were pressing round Willie, eagerly asking questions.