“If they runs any goods through me, then just ye may reckon the legs of me four times over.”
“And if they slip in past me,” said Bowler, “without a thick fog, or a storm that drives me off, I will believe more than all the wonders told of Robin Lyth.”
“Oh! concerning that fellow, by-the-bye,” Commander Nettlebones stopped his brother officers as they were making off; “you know what a point poor Carroway has made, even before I was sent down here, of catching the celebrated Robin for himself. He has even let his fellows fire at him once or twice when he was quietly departing, although we are not allowed to shoot except upon strenuous resistance. Cannon we may fire, but no muskets, according to wise ordinance. Luckily, he has not hit him yet; and, upon the whole, we should be glad of it, for the young fellow is a prime sailor, as you know, and would make fine stuff for Nelson. Therefore we must do one thing of two—let Carroway catch him, and get the money to pay for all the breeches and the petticoats we saw; or if we catch him ourselves, say nothing, but draft him right off to the Harpy. You understand me. It is below us to get blood-money upon the man. We are gentlemen, not thief-catchers.”
The Irishman agreed to this at once, but Bowler was not well pleased with it. “Our duty is to give him up,” he said.
“Your duty is to take my orders,” answered Nettlebones, severely. “If there is a fuss about it, lay the blame on me. I know what I am about in what I say. Gentlemen, good-by, and good luck to you.”
After long shivers in teeth of the wind and pendulous labor of rolling, the three cutters joyfully took the word to go. With a creak, and a cant, and a swish of canvas, upon their light heels they flew round, and trembled with the eagerness of leaping on their way. The taper boom dipped toward the running hills of sea, and the jib-foreleech drew a white arc against the darkness of the sky to the bowsprit's plunge. Then, as each keen cut-water clove with the pressure of the wind upon the beam, and the glistening bends lay over, green hurry of surges streaked with gray began the quick dance along them. Away they went merrily, scattering the brine, and leaving broad tracks upon the closing sea.
Away also went, at a rapid scamper, three men who had watched them from the breast-work of the cliffs—one went northward, another to the south, and the third rode a pony up an inland lane. Swiftly as the cutters flew over the sea, the tidings of their flight took wing ashore, and before the night swallowed up their distant sails, everybody on the land whom it concerned to know, knew as well as their steersmen what course they had laid.