“But that won’t do, my lads,” cried Hardock, excitedly. “We want to be all friends here, and he belongs to the enemy. They can’t take him on! It would mean trouble, as sure as you’re both there. Oh, they wouldn’t engage he.”
Hardock said no more, for Dinass had seen them as he turned from the office door, and came toward them at once.
“Are you?” he said to Hardock, without the ‘How’; and the captain nodded in a sulky way.
“What do you want here?” he said.
“Just whatever you like, captain. I’m an old hand, and ready for anything. The guv’nors have took me on, and I’m come to work.”
Chapter Twenty One.
Sam Hardock Disapproves.
Clank, clank! and wash, wash! The great pump worked and the water came up clear and bright, to rush along the channel cut in the floor of the adit and pour from the end like a feathery waterfall into the sea, the spray being carried like a shower of rain for far enough on a breezy day. But there seemed to be no end to it, and the proprietors began to look anxious.