“Yes, you’d better. Take the gig, and four men to row.”
“I can go, father?” cried Poole eagerly.
“Well, I don’t know,” said the skipper. “If you go, Mr Burnett here will want to be with you, and I know how particular he is as a young officer not to be seen having anything to do with our filibustering, as he calls it.”
Fitz frowned with annoyance, and seemed to give himself a regular snatch.
“You’d rather not go, of course?” continued the skipper dryly.
“I can’t help wanting to go, Mr Reed,” replied the lad sharply; “and if I went just as a spectator I don’t see how I should be favouring any of your designs.”
“Well, no,” said the skipper dryly, “if you put it like that. I don’t see after all how you could be accused of turning buccaneer. But would you really like to go?”
“Why, of course,” said Fitz. “It’s all experience.”
“Off with you then,” said the skipper; “only don’t get within shot. I don’t want to have to turn amateur doctor again on your behalf. I am clever enough at cuts and bruises, and I dare say if I were hard put to it I could manage to mend a broken leg or arm, but I wouldn’t undertake to be hunting you all over to find where a rifle-bullet had gone. Accidents are my line, not wounds received in war; and, by the way, while we are talking of such subjects, if we have to lie up here in this river for any time, you had better let me give you a dose or two of quinine.”
“Oh, but I am quite well now,” cried Fitz.