"It's not the girl we're after," said Bill's voice, with a pause and a spit. "It's the silver." And Engelhardt could hear him puffing at his pipe.
"It's gold and silver. She's the gold."
"I didn't dislike her," said the sailor-man. "I'd leave her be."
"She didn't sack you from the shed. Twelve pound a week it meant, with that image over the board!"
"Bo's'n'd let the whole thing be, I do believe," said Bill, "if we give 'im 'alf a chance."
"Not me," said Bo's'n. "I'll stick to my messmates. But we've stiffened two people already. It's two too many."
"What about your skipper down at Sandridge?"
"Well, I reckon he's a stiff 'un, too."
"Then none o' your skite, mate," said Bill, knocking out a clay pipe against his heel. "Look ye here, lads; it's a blessed Providence that's raked us together, us three. Here's me, straight out o' quod, coming back like a bird to the place where there's a good thing on. Here's Bo's'n, he's bashed in his skipper's skull and cut and run for it. We meet and we pal on. The likeliest pair in the Colony! And here's old Simons, knocked cock-eye by this 'ere gal, and swearing revenge by all that's bloody. He has a couple of horses, too—just the very thing we wanted—so he's our man. Is he on? He is. Do we join hands an' cuss an' swear to see each other through? We do—all three. Don't we go to the township for a few little necessaries an' have a drink on the whole thing? We do. Stop a bit! Doesn't a chap and a horse come our way, first shot off? Don't we want another horse, an' take it, too, ay and cook that chap's hash in fit an' proper style? Of course we do. Then what's the good o' talking? Tigerskin used to say, 'We'll swing together, matey, or by God we'll drive together in a coach-and-four with yeller panels and half-a-dozen beggars in gold lace and powdered wigs.' So that's what I say to you. There's that silver. We'll have it and clear out with it at any blessed price. We've let out some blood already. A four-hundred-gallon tankful more or less can make no difference now. We can only swing once. So drink up, boys, and make your rotten lives happy while you have 'em. There's only one thing to settle: whether do we start at eleven, or twelve, or one in the morning?"
Engelhardt heard a pannikin passed round and sucked at by all three. Then a match was struck and a pipe lit. His veins were frozen; he was past a tremor.