“Rubbish! Nonsense! Tell me, where is Mr Leigh?”
“Don’t know, your honour.”
“Don’t know, sir? What do you mean?”
“Please your honour, we’d found tracks, as we thought, of the smugglers’ lugger, and then Mr Leigh lost us. No; I mean, your honour, we lost him. No, he lost— I say, Tom Tully, my lad, which way weer it?”
Tom Tully grunted, gave his trousers a hitch, and looked at the lieutenant’s sword.
“Well, sir, do you hear?” cried the lieutenant; “how was it?”
“Stow all cuttin’s down,” grumbled Tom Tully, putting his hand behind so as to readjust the fall of his pigtail.
“Will—you—speak—out—you—ras–cal?” cried the lieutenant.
“Don’t know, your honour,” growled Tom Tully; “only as Muster Leigh went off.”
“There, I thought as much!” cried the lieutenant. “Deserted his men, and gone off.”