But Davis had no eye for the beauty of the picture, he turned, ran back to the house, and fetched out Harman.
“Fore and aft rig, maybe eighty or a hundred ton, maybe a bit less,” said Harman, “makin’ dead for the beach. Say, Bud, we been fools. Here’s a ship and never a plan to meet her with, nor a story to tell her.”
“Well, what’s the odds?” said Davis. “We’re shipwrecked, or, if you like it better, we skipped from a whaler. What are you bothering about? We’ve nothing to hide, only the Douro, and we’ve got rid of her. You’ve never thought of that, B. H. You’ve always been going on about Clayton getting the better of us by skipping off with those pearls in exchange for the Douro; hasn’t it ever got into your thick head that since we as good as stole the hooker, he did us a good turn by taking her? There’s not a port he could bring her into without being had, and I’ll bet my back teeth he’s jugged by this, him and his pearls.”
“If he is,” said Harman, “I’ll never say a word against the law again.”
Then they hung silent and the ship grew. The wind held steady, then it faded, great smoke-blue spaces showing on the sea; then it freshened, blowing from a new quarter, and the stranger, shifting her helm, payed off on the starboard tack. She showed now to be ketch-rigged.
“I’ve always been agin’ the law,” went on Mr. Harman, “but if the law puts that blighter in chokee, I’ll take the first lawyer I meet by the fist. I will so. I’ll say to him, you’re a man an’ brother, law or no law.”
“Oh hang the law!” cried Davis, whose face had turned purple, and whose eyes were straining at the ship. “Look at her. Can’t you see what she is? She’s the Douro!”
Harman’s hand flew up to shade his eyes. He stood for twenty seconds, then he gave a whoop and made as if to run to the sea edge, where the canoes were preparing to put out.
Davis caught him by the arm and pulled him back.
“Who are you holdin’?” cried Harman. “Let me get at the blighter! Leave me loose or I’ll give you the bashin’ I have in me fist for him. Leave me loose, you——”