“What’ll they do to the cove?” asked Dave.
“Hang ’im!” replied Tom, emphatically. “By gosh, if I thought they wouldn’t, you wouldn’t catch me goin’ an puttin’ ’im away!”
“Why?”
“Why, ain’t you got no sense at all? Suppose he got off. D’you think it ’ud be safe for you an’ me to stay round anywhere?”
“No,” said Dave, candidly, “I’ll be hanged if I do!”
“Look ’ere,” said Tom, “we better not talk about this any more till we got to.”
“How’s that?” asked the junior pirate. “Why bettern’t we?”
“Because,” replied Tom, looking into the scrub, “trees ’as got ears. We’ll have to take a oath not to do it.”
“We ain’t got no Bible,” ventured Dave.
“Pirates don’t always take a oath on the Bible,” explained Tom. “They take some oaths, ’specially oaths like this, on a knife.”