"It is that," said Burke, "and it is a great pity he wasn't shot with the others."
"Well," said the captain, "we've got a lot of work before us, and we want hands, so I think it will be best to let him turn in with the rest, and make him pay for his passage, wherever we take him. The worst he can do is to desert, and if he does that, he will settle his own business, and we shall have no more trouble with him."
"I don't like him," said Shirley. "I don't think we ought to have such a fellow going about freely on board."
"I am not afraid he will hurt any of us," said the captain, "and I am sure he will not corrupt the negroes. They hate him. It is easy to see that."
"Yes," said Burke, with a laugh. "They think he is a Rackbird, and it is just as well to let them keep on thinking so."
"Perhaps he is," thought the captain, but he did not speak this thought aloud.
CHAPTER XLII
INKSPOT HAS A DREAM OF HEAVEN
The next day the work of loading the Arato with the bags of gold was begun, and it was a much slower and more difficult business than the unloading of the Miranda, for the schooner lay much farther out from the beach. But there were two men more than on the former occasion, and the captain did not push the work. There was no need now for extraordinary haste, and although they all labored steadily, regular hours of work and rest were adhered to. The men had carried so many bags filled with hard and uneven lumps that the shoulders of some of them were tender, and they had to use cushions of canvas under their loads. But the boats went backward and forward, and the bags were hoisted on board and lowered into the hold, and the wall of gold grew smaller and smaller.
"Captain," said Burke, one day, as they were standing by a pile of bags waiting for the boat to come ashore, "do you think it is worth it! By George! we have loaded and unloaded these blessed bags all down the western coast of South America, and if we've got to unload and load them all up the east coast, I say, let's take what we really need, and leave the rest."