“Might I ask what you are talking about?” he said.
Cip de Musset rolled his quid into his cheek and spat before he replied.
“A rowboat load o’ rum and two men lost going from here to Bradwell,” he said laconically.
“Ah,” said Granger, “wonderful strange.”
“What, ain’t the boat been washed up?” said Blueneck, glad to enter into the conversation.
“No, nothing found at all,” said Granger eagerly, as he shifted his position slightly. “Nothing at all. But, ah, well,” he added, “I don’t know what’s come to them.”
“Would the Preventative men have catched them, think you?” remarked Cip, chewing.
“Now that are likely,” said Granger sarcastically. “Ain’t ’it? There not being a sign of a Preventative man these nine months! Oh, yes, Master de Musset, it are likely they’d be spry enough to catch two chaps in a rowboat in the middle of the Blackwater without a soul on the Island or the mainland knowing aught. Lord, you ought to ha’ been an excise man yourself, you ought.”
“Maybe, Granger, maybe,” said Cip de Musset placidly and without ceasing to chew.
“Maybe they drank the liquor and then pulled out the bung and sunk her theirselves,” suggested Habakkuk, sniffing violently.