“What for, sor? To get buried in threes that don’t so much as grow a cabbage, where there’s no wather and no company but monkeys and the shpotted tigers. Lave it to me, sor, and I’ll tak’ ye to a place where ye can lay shnug in hiding, and where maybe I can get spache of the darling as the bastes freckened away.”
“Where shall you go, then? Why not to that old temple where Mazzard made his attempt to kill the captain?”
“There, sor! Why, the captain would find us directly. You lave it to me.”
Humphrey would have taken to the forest without hesitation, but, worn-out and suffering keenly from disappointment, he was in no humour to oppose, and, signifying his willingness, he followed the Irishman by devious ways in and out of the ruins for some time, till Dinny crouched down, and motioned to Humphrey to do the same.
The place was such a chaos, and so changed by the terrific force of the explosion that Humphrey had felt as if he were journeying along quite a new portion of the forest outskirts, till, as he obeyed his companion and they crouched down among some dense herbage, he stared with astonishment at the sight before him, a couple of hundred yards away.
For there, beyond one of the piles of crumbling ruins, was a perfectly familiar pathway, out of which he saw step into the broad sunshine the picturesque figure of the buccaneer captain, who strode toward a group of waiting men.
A discussion seemed to take place, there were some sharp orders, and then the whole party disappeared.
“Why, Dinny, man, are you mad?” whispered Humphrey. “I trusted to you to take me to some place of hiding, and you’ve brought me right into the lion’s den.”
“Well, sor, and a moighty purty place too, so long as the lion’s not at home. Sure and ye just saw him go out.”
“But, Dinny—”