“Nigh hand to one of the islands,” said Sweeny, “in about four foot of water or maybe less. I’d be sorry if anything would happen the gentleman.”
“I’d be sorry anything would happen myself. But it’s easy talking. How am I to go in the boat when the master has sent down word that he’s going himself?”
Sweeny took another gulp of whisky and again thought deeply. At the end of five minutes he handed the bottle to Peter Walsh.
“Take a sup yourself,” he said.
Peter Walsh took a “sup,” a very large “sup,” with a sigh of appreciation. It had been very trying for him to watch Sweeny drinking whisky while he remained dry-lipped.
“Let you go down to the kitchen,” said Sweeny, “and borrow the loan of my shot gun. There’s cartridges in the drawer of the table beyond in the room. You can take two of them.”
“If it’s to shoot the master,” said Peter Walsh, “I’ll not do it. I’ve a respect for him ever since——”
“Talk sense. Do you think I want to have you hanged?”
“Hanged or drowned. The way you’re talking it’ll be both before I’m through with this work.”
“When you have the gun,” said Sweeny, “and the cartridges in it, you’ll go round to the back yard where you were this minute and you’ll fire two shots through this window, and mind what you’re at, Peter Walsh, for I won’t have every pane of glass in the back of the house broke, and I won’t have the missus’ hens killed. Do you think now you can hit this window from where you were standing in the yard?”