“Yes,” said Mike; “of course.”
“Aha! so can I,” said the captain, laughing boisterously. “Suppose I send you home my vay, eh? No one know ze vay to ze cavern.”
“I don’t understand you,” said Mike sturdily.
“Ma foi! vy should you understand? I send you home, and nobody know nosings. Les gens—ze peoples—look for you; they do not find you, and zey say—Aha, pauvres garçons, zey go and make a falls off ze cliff, and ve nevaire see them any more!”
Mike turned pale; Vince laughed.
“He does not mean it, Mike,” said the boy. “We know better than that, Captain Jacques.”
“Aha, you are so clever a boy. You vill explain how you know all ze better zan me, le Capitaine Lebrun.”
“There’s nothing to explain,” said Vince sturdily. “You don’t suppose we believe you would kill us because we came down here,—here, where we have business to come, but you have not?”
“Aha! c’est comme ça—it is like zat, my friend? You may come here, and I must not?”
“Of course,” said Vince. “This land belongs to his father, and you have no right to put smuggled things here.”