Wilbur looked at her in surprise. He had expected a refusal.
“You no hab got liver pill?” inquired Charlie blandly.
Moran turned her back on him. She and Wilbur conferred in a low voice.
“We'd better take them back, if we decently can,” said Moran. “The schooner is known, of course, in 'Frisco. She went out with Kitchell and a crew of coolies, and she comes back with you and I aboard, and if we tell the truth about it, it will sound like a lie, and we'll have no end of trouble. Then again, can just you and I work the 'Bertha' into port? In these kind of airs it's plain work, but suppose we have dirty weather? I'm not so sure.”
“I gib you ten dollah fo' ten liver pill,” said Charlie.
“Will you give us a thousand dollars to set you down in San Francisco?”
Charlie rose. “I go back. I tell um China boy what you say 'bout liver pill. Bime-by I come back.”
“That means he'll take our offer back to his friends,” said Wilbur, in a low voice. “You best hurry chop-chop,” he called after Charlie; “we go home pretty soon!”
“He knows very well we can't get away before high tide to-morrow,” said Moran. “He'll take his time.”
Later on in the afternoon Moran and Wilbur saw a small boat put off from the junk and make a landing by the creek. The beach-combers were taking on water. The boat made three trips before evening, but the beach-combers made no show of molesting the undefended schooner, or in any way interfering with Charlie's camp on the other side of the bay.