“It’s easy to laugh,” said Hank, “but it’s no laughing matter to us. We’ve lost the Wear Jack, we’ve lost the boodle, we’ve lost our time, and we’ve been played a damn dirty trick, about as dirty as the trick the Chinks seem to have played on you.”
Candon was not laughing now. He had turned to the starboard rail and was standing looking at the Heart. Tommie on the deck was clearly visible. She was looking at the Wear Jack; then she turned away and went below, as though to escape from the sight of him.
Candon gripped the rail tighter and heaved a deep breath. He turned to the others.
“So I’ve played you a dirty trick,” said Candon. “Well, if I hadn’t you’d have suspected me all the same, you’d never have said to yourselves maybe he didn’t, let’s ask him——”
“Ask him,” said Hank. “What’s the use, but I ask you now—Did you take that boat and go off to the Wear Jack for those automatics, leaving us there on that beach without pistols or means of fighting if the Mexicans came?”
“I did,” said Candon, a curious light in his blue eyes.
“Did you sail off and leave us there?”
“I did.”
“Well then, there’s no use talking.”
“Not a bit,” said George.