“But what are you doing there?”
“Hanging on to a bit o’ line made fast to a belaying-pin.”
“But why? What do you want, sir?”
“Will yer keep quiet, my lad?” whispered the man, excitedly. “I don’t want to hear old Jarette sawing through this rope. What do I want? Come, I like that, arter risking all this here to get a word with you.”
“Go back to your friends, you scoundrel,” whispered Mr Frewen; “you have come to spy upon us!”
“Wheer’s my lantern, then? Man can’t spy a night like this, when it’s as black as inside a water-cask in a ship’s hold.”
“Mr Frewen is right,” I said. “Go back to your friends.”
“Arn’t got none forrard, leastwise only two; I’ve come to say ‘how de do.’”
“Don’t trust him, Mr Frewen, he’s a traitor,” I whispered; only Hampton evidently heard.
“Come, I like that, Mr Dale, sir. But I say, how could you be so easily took in? Theer was nothing else for a man to do but to go with the bad beggars, and when I seemed to jyne ’em, why of course Neb Dumlow and old Barney joined at once.”