“A body may change his mind, and no murder. Only consider, Harry, how common it is for folks to change their minds. I did intend to pass between Cuba and Jamaica, but I intend it no longer. Our run from Montauk has been oncommon short, and I've time enough to spare to go to the southward of Jamaica too, if the notion takes me.”
“That would greatly prolong the passage, Captain Spike,—a week at least.”
“What if it does—I've a week to spare; we're nine days afore our time.”
“Our time for what, sir? Is there any particular time set for a vessel's going into Key West?”
“Don't be womanish and over-cur'ous, Mulford. I sail with sealed orders, and when we get well to windward of Jamaica, 't will be time enough to open them.”
Spike was as good as his word. As soon as he thought the sloop-of-war was far enough to leeward, or when she was hull down, he filled away and made sail on the wind to get nearer to Porto Rico. Long ere it was dark he had lost sight of the sloop-of-war, when he altered his course to south-westerly, which was carrying him in the direction he named, or to windward of Jamaica.
While this artifice was being practised on board the Molly Swash, the officers of the Poughkeepsie were not quite satisfied with their own mode of proceeding with the brigantine. The more they reasoned on the matter, the more unlikely it seemed to them that Spike could be really carrying a cargo of flour from New York to Key West, in the expectation of disposing of it to the United States' contractors, and the more out of the way did he seem to be in running through the Mona Passage.
“His true course should have been by the Hole in the Wall, and so down along the north side of Cuba, before the wind,” observed the first lieutenant. “I wonder that never struck you, Wallace; you, who so little like trouble.”
“Certainly I knew it, but we lazy people like running off before the wind, and I did not know but such were Mr. Spike's tastes,” answered the “ship's gentleman.” “In my judgment, the reluctance he showed to letting us have any of his flour, is much the most suspicious circumstance in the whole affair.”
These two speeches were made on the poop, in the presence of the captain, but in a sort of an aside that admitted of some of the ward-room familiarity exhibited. Captain Mull was not supposed to hear what passed, though hear it he in fact did, as was seen by his own remarks, which immediately succeeded.