"I should think you might. You can go to sleep if you like; and when we have done with the steamer, I will call you, and ask you to return her to Captain Chickworth with my compliments," continued the Scotchman very pleasantly, for his wounds did not seem to make him ugly.
Louis concluded that he was to make a great deal of money out of his share of the present venture, and that the thought of it was the solution of his cheerfulness. According to the statement of Diego, the want of a breeze was likely to ruin all their prospects, subject the cargo of the schooner to confiscation, and her ship's company to proper punishment. The capture of the Salihé could hardly fail to make them happy.
Gray passed them all into the cabin, and locked the door upon them. Then he ordered a Spaniard to bring them a couple of bottles of the excellent wine of which he had spoken before; but Louis assured him that none of them ever drank wine under any circumstances. Then he reminded them that he was treating them as well as though Captain Belgrave had accepted his liberal offer, speaking to them through the blinds in the door. When he had thus delivered himself, he walked forward, for the prisoners could hear his footsteps on the deck.
"Here we are!" exclaimed Louis, as he seated himself on the divan which surrounded the apartment.
"Just where we ought not to be," added Felix. "I obeyed the order of the captain; but I could hardly help putting a ball from my revolver through the head of that gray blackguard of a Scotchman, bad luck to him!"
"What better off should we have been, Flix, if you had killed or wounded him?" asked Louis quietly.
"We should have had one less to fight, and we might have shot some more of them," argued the Milesian.
"Diego had a wicked-looking knife in his belt, and I have no doubt the rest of them were similarly armed," replied Louis.
"I might have shot Diego when he took the helm from me," added Morris.
"I am glad you did not, my boy. If you had failed to disable him with the first barrel, he would have stabbed you before you could have fired the second. If Flix had fired his revolver at Gray, the other four in the boat would have leaped on board, and used their knives freely," continued Louis, who still believed he had adopted the wisest course.