He turned and beckoned to Mark Ruthine, who presently joined them, after paying the boatmen.
“The nine forty-five is the train,” he said to him. “We may as well walk up. The streets of Plymouth are not pleasant to drive through.”
So the cab was sent on with the luggage, and the three men turned to the slope that leads up to the Hoe.
There was some sort of constraint over them, and they reached the summit of the ascent without having exchanged a word.
When they stood on the Hoe, where the old Eddystone lighthouse is now erected, Seymour Michael turned and looked out over the bay where the ships lay at anchor.
“The good old Mahanaddy,” he said, “the finest ship I have ever sailed in.”
Neither man answered him, but they turned also and looked, standing one on each side of him.
Then at last Jem Agar spoke, breaking a silence which had been brooding since the Mahanaddy came out of the Canal.
“I want to know,” he said, “exactly how things stand with my people at home.”
He continued to look out over the bay towards the Mahanaddy, but Mark Ruthine was looking at Seymour Michael.