“It is.”
“Am I concerned?” asked Captain Bassett.
Andy looked at the man again. There was anything but a bad look in the Englishman’s face. His strong, sunburned countenance was set in feature, but the boy saw nothing more than the face of a man accustomed to giving orders and being obeyed. Yet, being in for it, the lad could not lie. Caught in his indiscretion, he only nodded his head.
“After supper, then, we’ll talk it over,” was the Englishman’s only comment.
“And,” added Andy, eager to show some appreciation of the man’s kindness to him, “we won’t take the machine apart until I know what you were figuring on.”
“As you like,” replied the man in quite another tone.
Nothing more was said until Captain Bassett’s after-dinner cigar was going well.
“Now,” he said, “before I tell you of what I was thinking and of Timbado Key, I’d like to hear what you know about the place—that is, if you like.”
“I don’t like it at all,” answered Andy in renewed confusion. “And I’m sure part of what I’ve been told is not true. But I’ll finish what I started, even if you think the less of me for it. I ain’t much for carryin’ tales.”
“It may be true,” was the Englishman’s comment, as he settled down in his canvas deck chair and luxuriously drew on his Havana cigar.