“What! Mr Raystoke, sir? Don’t be a fool.”
“No, sir,” replied Dick humbly, and the men tramped on with a couple of open-mouthed, barefooted boys following them to stare at their cutlasses and pistols.
“Say, Mester Gurr,” ventured Dick, after a pause, “none of ’em wouldn’t ha’ done that, would they?”
Dick had followed the master’s look, as he shaded his eyes and stared over the green slope which led up to the cliffs.
“What?”
“Chucked him off yonder.”
Gurr glanced round to see if the men were looking, and then said rather huskily but kindly,—
“In ord’nary, Dick, my lad, no; but when smugglers finds themselves up in corners where they can’t get away, they turns and fights like rats, and when they fights they bites.”
“Ah!” ejaculated Dick sadly.
“You’re only a common sailor, Dick, and I’m your officer, but though I speak sharp unto you, I respect you, Dick, for you like that lad.”