"So I am, sir, so I am—and beg your pardon. But you must admit, it's almost enough to make ... but never mind, sir, the trick is done. Whatever it may be that that there schooner carries in her bottom, she is free now to take it, barring accident, wherever she pleases. I'll trouble you to look this way, sir."
They had emerged from the wooded part of the park, and the rising ground on which they stood commanded a wide sea-view, west of the great bay.
"There she is again, sir," said Mr. Hobson, waving his broad paw, like a showman displaying his goods, with a sort of enraged self-satisfaction. "There is the schooner, ready to hoist sail as soon as he comes alongside. And that there black point which you may see, if your eyes are good enough, is a six-oared galley with as ship-shaped a crew—if it's the same as I saw making off this morning—as ever pulled. Your Captain Smith, you may take your oath, is at the tiller, and making fun of us two to the lads. In five minutes he will be on board, and then the revenue cutter from the station may give chase if she likes!... And there she is, due to the time—about a mile astern. But bless you, that's all my eye, you may take your oath! They know well enough that in an open sea they can't run down a Salcombe schooner. But to earn their pay they will hang on till they lose her, and then sail home, all cosy.—I'm thinking," he added slily, with a side glance at the magistrate: "we won't hang him this time."
Mr. Landale made no answer; during the last few minutes his reflections had enabled him to take a new view of the situation. After all the future fate of Captain Jack was of little moment. He had been successfully exposed before Madeleine, whose love for the young man was, as had just been sufficiently proved, chiefly composed of those youthful illusions which dispelled once, never can return.
Rupert fell gradually into a reverie in which he found curious satisfaction. His work had not been unsuccessful, whatever Mr. Hobson's opinion might be. But, as matters stood between Madeleine and her lover, the girl's eyes had been opened in time, and that without scandal.... And even the escape of Captain Jack was, upon reflection, the best thing that could have happened.
And so it was with a return to his usual polite bearing, that he listened to the officer's relapse into expostulation.
"Now if you had only given me the hint first of all," the man was grumblingly saying, "and then let me act—for who would have suspected a boat, yacht-rigged like that?—A friend of Sir Adrian's, too! If you'd only left it to me! Why that six-oared galley alone is agin the law unless you can prove good reason for it ... as for the vessel herself...."
"Yes, my dear Mr. Hobson," interrupted Mr. Landale, smiling propitiously. "I have no doubt you would have secured him. I have made a mess of it. But now you understand, least said, soonest mended, both for me and (between ourselves, Mr. Hobson) for the young lady."
The man, in surprise at this sudden alteration of manner, stopped short and gaped; and presently a broad smile, combined with a knowing wink, appeared on his face. He received the guineas that Mr. Landale dropped in his palm with an air of great candour, and, without further parley, acted on the kind advice to repair to the Priory and talk with one Mrs. Puckett the housekeeper, on the subject of corporeal refreshment.