He bought a leg of mutton, handed it to the shopman to carry, and sauntered on.
“You must have your jest, I see, sir,” said the shopman.
“Oh yes, if I swing for it,” replied the captain, quoting from a popular broadside, which had contained the biography of a pirate.
“Hadn’t we better walk a little faster, sir?” said the shopman. He had no desire to be caught; he was not used to excitements.
“Olivia,” said Captain Margaret, paying no attention to his new acquaintance, but continuing to saunter leisurely, “when we get on board I expect you’ll find your husband up and about.”
“Yes,” she answered. “I ought not to have left him for so long. I’ve hardly seen him for days.”
He had spoken so that the shopman might make no allusions to the Salcombe affair, casting out a reference to Stukeley’s crime. She had answered with some little, half-acknowledged wish to pique him.
“To-night,” said Margaret, “in the cabin, we’ll all hold a council of war to decide our doings on the Main.”
“Yes,” she answered. “And when we get there we shall remember the council. Things will look very different there.”
“Here. You’ve been talking to Cammock.”