"Then you might have guessed it."
And this was quite true, if I had been in a humor for guessing.
"I have been trapped and despatched to sea to please Lady Biddy," says I, savagely.
"Well, you'll bear me no grudge for that. There was no way to save you but by getting you aboard the ship." Then, glancing round to see we were alone, he adds, dropping his voice, "And if Sir Harry Smidmore made to sea with you before you could escape, that he might please his sweetheart and keep you and her well asunder, 'twas no fault of mine. Don't you like it, Pengilly?"
I ground my teeth for response.
"Would you be even with him for this trick?" he asked, in the same low tone, and with a sinister leer.
"Aye, that I would!"
"So would I in your place," says he. "If a man served me that way, I'd—"
Here he stopped, and taking up a jack-knife, he stuck it in the deal board that served as a bench, and pressed on it till the blade came out on the other side, and while he did this his sinewy hand grasped the board as if it were a throat, and his lips were drawn back close to his pointed teeth; then he looked sidelong at me, saying never a word, as if to know how I took this hint.
"I am no murderer," says I, terrified by his manner as much as by his suggestion.