"You are like a miser then, ever accumulating and loth to spend."
"Just that! Ye see I never had siccan a chance before,—nor many others either. Ye wouldna care for a ring or two, or mebbe a bracelet or a brooch?"
"Oh, I could not. It is good of you to offer, but ... no, I thank you. They would always make me think of the skeletons out there. Poor things!"
"They don't hurt, and they're aye laughing as if 'twas all a rare joke," which made her shiver with discomfort and draw her blanket closer round her neck at the back.
"Well, well!" said he, with a hoarse laugh, as he made up his bundle again. "Folks has queer notions. Ef 't 'adn't been for me——"
"And the Doctor," she interposed quickly.
"Ay—and the Doctor there——"
"I know," she cut him short, "and it is very much nicer to be sitting here by a warm fire than tumbling about on a mast out there. I appreciate it, I assure you."
Perhaps it was to restore the balance of his spirits, which had suffered somewhat from the discovery that his treasure was not all he had thought it, that made him apply himself more heartily than usual to the rum cask that night. By the Doctor's advice any water they drank from the brackish pools was mixed with a few drops of rum. Macro always saw to it that a cask was at hand, and he himself took but small risks as far as the water was concerned. But he could stand a heavy load, and as a rule it only made him sluggish and uncompanionable.
This night, however, as he sat dourly smoking, and taking every now and again a long pull at his handy pannikin, it seemed to set him brooding over things and at times he grew disputatious.