The other man laughed harshly, and leaning forward, said in a low voice: “Hast thou found me, O mine enemy!”
“Don’t say that!” exclaimed Todd. “Don’t call me your enemy, Jeff. Lord knows but I’m glad to see you, though I’d never have known you without your beard and with that grey hair. I’ve been to blame, Jeff, and I know it; but it ain’t no use raking up old grudges. Let bygones be bygones, Jeff, and let us be pals as we used to be.” He wiped his face with his handkerchief and watched his companion apprehensively.
“Sit down,” said Rorke, pointing to a shabby rep-covered arm-chair; “sit down and tell me what you’ve done with all that money. You’ve blued it all, I suppose, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“Robbed, Jeff,” answered Todd; “robbed of every penny. Ah! that was an unfortunate affair, that job on board the old Sea-flower. But it’s over and done with and we’d best forget it. They’re all dead but us, Jeff, so we’re safe enough so long as we keep our mouths shut; all at the bottom of the sea—and the best place for ’em too.”
“Yes,” Rorke replied fiercely, “that’s the best place for your shipmates when they know too much; at the bottom of the sea or swinging at the end of a rope.” He paced up and down the little room with rapid strides, and each time that he approached Todd’s chair the latter shrank back with an expression of alarm.
“Don’t sit there staring at me,” said Rorke. “Why don’t you smoke or do something?”
Todd hastily produced a pipe from his pocket, and having filled it from a moleskin pouch, stuck it in his mouth while he searched for a match. Apparently he carried his matches loose in his pocket, for he presently brought one forth—a red-headed match, which, when he struck it on the wall, lighted with a pale-blue flame. He applied it to his pipe, sucking in his cheeks while he kept his eyes fixed on his companion. Rorke, meanwhile, halted in his walk to cut some shavings from a cake of hard tobacco with a large clasp-knife; and, as he stood, he gazed with frowning abstraction at Todd.
“This pipe’s stopped,” said the latter, sucking ineffectually at the mouthpiece. “Have you got such a thing as a piece of wire, Jeff?”
“No, I haven’t,” replied Rorke; “not up here. I’ll get a bit from the store presently. Here, take this pipe till you can clean your own: I’ve got another in the rack there.” The sailor’s natural hospitality overcoming for the moment his animosity, he thrust the pipe that he had just filled towards Todd, who took it with a mumbled “Thank you” and an anxious eye on the open knife. On the wall beside the chair was a roughly-carved pipe-rack containing several pipes, one of which Rorke lifted out; and, as he leaned over the chair to reach it, Todd’s face went several shades paler.
“Well, Jeff,” he said, after a pause, while Rorke cut a fresh “fill” of tobacco, “are we going to be pals same as what we used to be?”