“Thankye, sir.”
“Why do you say that, Tom?”
“Oh, ’cause you said what we’d do.”
“Of course.”
“Yes, sir, but some young gents—Mr Roberts there, for instance—would ha’ thought he knowed best and wouldn’t have listened to a bit of advice. Pst! Don’t you hear some un coming along, making the trees rustle and crackle a bit?”
Murray listened eagerly, before turning to the big sailor again.
“No. Your ears are better than mine, Tom.”
The middy had hardly ceased speaking before there was a heavy burst of coarse laughter, and then several voices came from some little distance away, while as the listeners crouched together and drew their cutlasses, after Tom May had raised the pan of his musket and closed it again, satisfied that the priming was correct, the pair gazed in each other’s eyes, for Roberts started and turned uneasily, waking the wounded sailor, who began to talk aloud and incoherently about manning a boat and getting ashore.
“What’s to be done, Tom?” whispered Murray; and as he spoke he loosened the knot of his neckerchief and slipped it off, to hold it to the big sailor.
“Right, sir. Can’t do better than that.” And taking the silk kerchief, Tom began to crawl close to where the man’s voice was sinking to a low muttering, the poor fellow being perfectly unconscious of the fact that his messmate was leaning over him ready to use the silken tie as a gag and thrust it between his teeth if he went on talking and the enemy drew near.