“If it was you!” snarled Jarette.
“Look here, don’t you shove that pistol in my face,” cried Bob Hampton, angrily, “or I shall out with my knife and have a fight for it. What yer talking about? If I’d left the wheel, wouldn’t the ship have yawed, and you come to see what was the matter?”
That sounded so convincing that Jarette was silent, while Bob Hampton continued—
“And if I’d wanted to help ’em to get on deck, do you think I should ha’ been such a fool as to tie a bit o’ signal halyard to the spanker-boom, when I could ha’ made a bit o’ strong rope fast to the belaying-pins, and hung it over the stern?”
Jarette growled out something we could not hear.
“Then it must have been one of them two,” said Bob Hampton; “or they chucked it up from the cabin-window.”
“It was not one of them,” said Jarette, with a peculiar intonation in his voice. “I’m not afraid of that.”
“Strikes me,” growled Bob, “if yer wants to know my ’pinion, as it must have been some one who was up aloft.”
I gave a jump.
“Hah!” cried Jarette, “whoever it was you lads chased. I know: it was that monkey of a boy.”