Halfman, who had been swaying with silent merriment ever since the departure of Master Paul, suddenly grew steady again and looked warnings.
“He asks for another kind of angling, as I gather,” he suggested. Brilliana looked daintily wise.
“As I bait the hook I believe I will land him. It will be rare if I can make Paul rob Peter while Peter plunders Paul. How dare they be so close-fisted while the King’s flag is flying and England’s honor in peril!”
If she said this with any idea of palliating the possible lawlessness of her action in the eyes of her companion, she wasted her words. Halfman had not been so happy since his return to England, not even in the briskest days of the siege, as he was now in the staging of this lawless comedy. The old pirate jigged in him at this fair maid’s strategy.
“By St. Nicholas,” he swore, “they should be bled white for a brace of knaves! This, I take it, is your other honor-bankrupt atomy.”