“Know Sir Archibald well?” the skipper pursued.
Archie sat down in disgust.
“Pretty intimate, eh?” asked the skipper.
The boy laughed again; and then all at once––all in a flash––his ill-humour and suspicion vanished. His father not play fair? How preposterous the fancy had been! Of course, he 241 was playing fair! But somebody wasn’t. And who wasn’t?
“It is queer,” said he. “What do you make of it, Bill?”
“I been thinkin’,” the skipper replied heavily.
“Have you fathomed it?”
“Well,” the skipper drawled, “I’ve thunk along far enough t’ want t’ look into it farder. I’d say,” he added, “t’ put back t’ Conch.”
“It’s going to blow, Skipper Bill.”
It had already begun to blow. The wind was moaning aloft. The long-drawn melancholy penetrated to the cozy cabin. In the shelter of the cliff though she was, the schooner tossed in the spent seas that came swishing in from the open.