Later on he and his party made their way up to the smugglers’ cottages, to find them deserted by everyone save Eben Megg’s wife, with three pretty little dark-eyed children.
The woman looked frightened, and burst into tears as she recognised the young officer, who began at her at once.
“You’re a nice woman, you are,” he said. “What have you got to say for yourself for keeping me a prisoner below there?”
“I—I only did what I was told, sir,” faltered the woman.
“Were you told to fasten us down there to starve?” cried the middy.
“Fasten?—to starve? Were you left down there, sir, when my Eben was knocked down and carried away?”
“Of course we were.”
“I didn’t know, sir,” sobbed the woman. “If I had, though I was in such trouble, I’d have come and brought you all I could, same as I did before, sir. Indeed I would.”
“Humph!” grunted the middy. “Well, you did feed me as well as you could. So you’ve lost your husband, then?”
The woman tried to answer, but only sobbed more loudly.