“You’re a very foolish fellow. Don’t rob any more travellers! If all goes as I believe it will, we shall finish our business tomorrow.”
“I’d as lief we did,” commented Chirk.
“And I! I am going to tell you just what I have arranged to do, and what your part must be. Everything depends on Stornaway, but I think he will do exactly what I want him to do.”
“I daresay you know what you’re about,” said Chirk.
But by the time the Captain had come to the end of a brief account of what had passed between himself and Stornaway, the faintly sceptical expression on the highwayman’s face had changed to one of blank dismay. “And I thought you was a downy one!” he ejaculated. “Lord, Soldier, you’ve got more hair than wit, seemingly!”
“Have I?” said the Captain, smiling.
“If you don’t see that you’ll be queered on that suit, you’re wood-headed!” said Chirk bluntly. “I never clapped my ogles on young Stornaway, but by what Rose has told me—let alone what you’ve just told me—any cove as ’ud trust him an inch beyond the reach of his barker is no better than a bleater! God love you, Soldier, he’ll turn cat in pan on you! A cull as’ll whiddle on his friends, like he done tonight to you, won’t think twice afore he tips you the double! P’raps you’ll tell me why he was so anxious you shouldn’t force him to show you the cavern till it was morning—if them windmills you’ve got in your head don’t stop you thinking?”
The smile lingered in John’s eyes. “Oh, no! Not a bit! He wanted time to take counsel of Coate, of course.”
Chirk’s jaw dropped. “He——And you’re being so very obliging as to let him?”
“It is precisely what I wish him to do. By hedge or by stile, I must get Coate into that cavern. I’ve been in the deuce of a puzzle to know how to do it—till I hit upon this notion. I believe it will answer: if it doesn’t, the lord only knows what’s to be done next!”