“Do?” he said slowly.
Gilbot swallowed painfully, his fat, podgy knees shaking under him and his little reddened eyes shifting uneasily.
“He killed hisself,” he muttered.
Blueneck bent over the table for a second and with his finger and thumb lifted one of the dark eyelids. He appeared satisfied, and straightening his back looked at the two critically.
“I knew it wasn’t no usual affair with him,” he said almost complacently. Then he turned to Gilbot. “She was a pretty wench,” he said, nodding at the little, white, still smiling face on the table.
Gilbot did not speak, and the man went on: “I never thought he’d do for himself, though,” he muttered, “but it’s his stroke right enough, see”—he dragged the lace ruffles from the small gushing wound, “right over the collar-bone and down to the neck—he was a wonder with that knife of his; there wasn’t another man in the country who could try that stroke on himself and hit so clean.”
Gilbot nodded.
“Ay, he was a wonderful little fellow,” he said, “though I never took much notice of him. But what are you going to do, sir?”
Blueneck faced the three men steadily, a smile breaking out on his lips.
“Put to sea!” he said deliberately. “The men are a mangy lot, God knows, but if they’d sail under him they’ll sail under me, and be glad of the change.”