“Aye, aye, sir.”
“This is a dead pirate. He died defending—defending his life. He will be discovered if we leave him here.”
This seemed eminently probable. The Lieutenant looked alarmed. He took a step or two on the loft floor and returned, relieved.
“No, he ain’t dead, either,” he announced, “he’s only as——”
“He is dead,” repeated the Head Captain firmly. “Dead, I say. You shut up, will you? And we must bury him.”
The Lieutenant looked sulky and chewed the end of his sash. To be so put down before the Vicar! It was hardly decent. And she, in her usual and irritating way, grasped the situation immediately.
“We must bury him right off,” she whispered excitedly, “before that man gets up here.”
“That man,” added the Head Captain, “is a dreadful bad fellow, I tell you. If he was to catch us up here, I don’t know—I don’t know but he’d—here, come back, Lieutenant! Come back, I say!”
They stole up to the dead pirate, who had not the appearance attributed by popular imagination to those who have died nobly. The Lieutenant was frankly in the dark as to his superior officer’s intentions.
“If you take him off to bury him he’ll wake——”