“Haint you was ’hrobber, han ron hoff with those sheep?” demanded the keeper excitedly.
“No, we are not ship thieves but gentlemen, my friend,” I answered, suddenly catching at his long gun and setting it behind me. “You might let that go off,” I explained. At which he went yellower than ever, a thing I had thought impossible.
“Now, look here,” said I. “Suppose we are robbers, pirates, what you like, and suppose a price is put on our heads—a price which means a jolly nice libel suit for each paper printing it, by the way, or a jolly nice apology—none the less, we are a strong band and without fear either of the law or of you. Here you are alone, and not a sail is in sight. If any boat did come here, we could—well, we could blow her out of the water, couldn’t we, Peterson? We could blow you out of the water, too, couldn’t we, we and these ruffians of our crew?”—and I pointed at the two low-browed pictures of Lafitte and L’Olonnois.
A shudder was my only answer. I think the two portraits of my young bullies did the business.
“Very well, then,” I resumed, “it is plain, Messieurs, that there is many a slip between the reward and the pocket, voyez vous? Bien! But here—” and I thrust a hand into my pocket—“is a reward much closer home, and far easier to attain.”
Their eyes bulged as they saw two or three thousand dollars in big bills smoothed out.
“Ecoutez, Messieurs!” said I. “Behold here not enemies, but men of like mind. I speak of men who live by the sea, men of the old home of Jean Lafitte, that great merchant, that bold soldier, who did so much to save his country at the Battle. Even now he has thousands of friends and hundreds of relatives in this land. You yourself, I doubt not, Messieurs, are distant cousins of Jean Lafitte? N’est-ce pas?”
They crossed themselves, but murmured “Ba-oui!” “Est ees the trut’! How did Monsieur know?” asked the tender.
“I know many things. I know that any cousin descended from those brave days loves the sea and its ways more than he loves the law. And if money has come easy—as this did—what harm if a cousin should take the price of a rat-skin or two and carry out a letter or so to the railway, and keep a close mouth about it as well? To the good old days, and Messieurs, my friends!” I had seen the neck of a flask in Peterson’s pocket, and now I took it forth, unscrewed the top, and passed it, with two bills of one hundred dollars each.
They poured, grinned. I stood, waiting for their slow brains to act, but there was only a foregone answer. The keeper drank first, as ranking his tender; the other followed; and they handed the flask—not the bills—back to Peterson and me.