“Do bo’suns of seventy-four gun ships chew very bad?” inquired Peekins.
“Oh! don’t they!” exclaimed Tommy, opening his eyes very wide, and rounding his mouth so as to express his utter inability to convey any idea of the terrific powers of bo’suns in that particular line. “But Bluenose beats ’em all. He’d chew oakum, I do believe, if he didn’t get baccy, and yet he boasts of not drinkin’! Seems to me he’s just as bad as the rest of us.”
“D’you think so?” said Peekins, with a doubtful look; “don’t you think the man who does only two nasty things is better off than the one that does three?”
“Nasty things!” exclaimed Tommy in a tone of amazement. “Don’t Bax drink and smoke, and d’ye think he’d do one or t’other if they was nasty? Peekins, you small villian as was a blue spider only a week since, if you ever talks of them things being nasty again, I’ll wop you!”
“You hear that, Bax?” said Guy Foster, who, being only a few paces ahead of the boys, had overheard the remark, spoken as it was in rather a loud key.
Bax nodded his head, and smiled, but made no reply.
It is but just to say that Tommy’s threat was uttered more than half in jest. He would as soon have thought of “wopping” a little girl as of maltreating his meek companion. But Peekins was uncertain how to take his threat, so, not being desirous of a wopping, he held his tongue and humbly followed his comrades.
The party walked for some time at the foot of the cliffs under the lee of a boat-house, engaged in earnest conversation as to the best mode of proceeding in the meditated enterprise. It was evident to all of them that the hour for action could not now be far distant; for the gale increased every moment; the light on the South Foreland was already sending its warning rays far and wide over the angry sea, whence the floating lights that mark the sands sent back their nightly greeting, while dark thunderous clouds mantled over the sky and deepened the shades of night which, ere long, completely overspread land and sea.