The other smugglers in our boat were not very eager to work with strangers; but Marah talked them over. Only old Gateo would not listen to him.
"Something bad will come of it," he kept saying. "You mark what I say: something bad will come of it."
Then Marah would heave a sea-boot at him, and tell him to hold his jaw; and the old man would mutter over his quid and say that we should see.
We loaded our lugger with contraband goods, mostly lace and brandy, an extremely valuable cargo. The work of loading kept the men from thinking about Gateo's warnings, though, like most sailors, they were all very superstitious.
Then some French merchants gave us a dinner at the inn, to wish us a good voyage, and to put new spirit into us, by telling us what good fellows we were. But the dinner was never finished; for before they had begun their speeches a smuggler came in to say that the wind had shifted, and that it was now breezing up from the southeast. So we left our plates just as they were. The men rose up from their chairs, drank whatever was in their cups at the moment, and marched out of the inn in a body.
To me it seemed bitterly cold outside the inn, I shivered till my teeth chattered.
Marah asked me if I had a touch of fever, or if I were ill, or "what was it, anyway, that made me shiver so?"
I said that I was cold.
"Cold!" he said. "Cold? Why, it's one of the hottest nights we have had this summer. Here's a youngster says he's cold!"
One or two of them laughed at me then; for it was, indeed, a hot night. They laughed and chaffed together as they cast off the mooring ropes.