“It’s whisky!” he said, disgustedly. “I thought it was gold out of a captured galleon!”
“Whisky!” ejaculated Dave.
“Yes; somebody’s runnin’ a still round here, an’ this is the plantin’ place. I bet ’arf-a-crown somebody else will come along to-night and take it off!”
“Where’ll they take it?”
“Down the river, I suppose, to some public house. If we put ’em away to the pleece they’d be fined a hundred quid, an’ their still took an’ broke up. We’d get a reward, too!”
“Why don’t we, then?”
“Because,” said Tom, emphatically, “we ain’t informers, we’re pirates! If a poor cove is makin’ a drop of grog out of his maize on the quiet, let ’im. It ain’t no business of ours. Besides, we’d be putting ourselves away. An’, besides, if we did a thing like that we wouldn’t get no credit for it neither. They’re all in the same boat about here.”
“What’s became of the cove that hid it?” asked Dave.
“I followed his trail, all right,” replied Tom. “I never knowed about this track, either. They ain’t bin usin’ the island for a plant long, I reckon. The cove went off in a boat quiet. There’s a regular pathway wore where they been rollin’ in the casks; but it don’t take long to make a road like that.”
“He might come back?” said Dave.