“I’ll be gone.”
“Gone! Why, first click of the windlass and they’ll be aboard us.”
“You leave it to me.”
“Well, I wish we’d have went before you broke them plates.”
“Oh, cuss the plates!”
“Easy to say that. It makes me just nacheral wild to see that old Delf’ plate starin’ me in the face, round and sound, and the blue pattern ones gone.”
Silence for a moment, at the end of which Satan’s head and bust appeared at the cabin hatch.
He winked at Ratcliffe, and pointed backward with his thumb and down below, as if indicating the domestic trouble.
“There’s no sign of them swabs comin’ off again?” asked he.
“No,” said Ratcliffe. “They seem to have had enough of it.”