“You will be my partner, I hope,” said Margaret. “We will have all these islands laid out in vanillas, cacao, indigo, anatta, cochineal, everything. All the Isthmus there will be our estate. We shall trade with the Spaniards and the whole of Europe.”
“Very nice, too,” said Pain. “But if the Spaniards won’t trade?”
“Then we shall declare that they’ve no right here, and that we, in the name of the rest of the world, have a right to assist the rightful owners of the country, who wish us to trade.”
“And then a governor’ll come, and stop our going on the account,” said Pain.
“Yes. But if he does,” said Margaret, “you must see that with the Isthmus in your hands you’ll be better off than you are now. What do you do now? You pick up a boatful of sugar once a month, and share a crown a man. Then you run short of food and go to Toro for turtle.”
“That’s it, Pete,” said Cammock.
“Your scheme’s very pretty,” Pain said. “But you’re a gentleman. I ain’t a gentleman myself, thank God, and I don’t know what your game is. You’re either a bit off your biscuit, or you’re in with the Government. That’s my candid opinion.”
“All right,” said Margaret. “We won’t go into that.”
At this moment Stukeley entered, a little flown with rum, from the ward-room dinner.
“Hello, Maggy,” he said. “I’ve come to talk with Captain Pain here. Your servant, captain. I suppose these twisters here have been talking about and about it. Eh? They make a man sick, I say. Eh? Hold your tongue, Maggy. Wait till you’re spoken to. I’ve got something to say. The men of war—my friends in the ’tween-decks there—they’ve been talking with me while you’ve been talking here. You talk all day, and leave off just where you were.”