Outside our gentleman untethered his horse from the iron ring to which he had attached the bridle; leading his horse he turned seaward and strode down the road that wound along the estuary towards Smithick.
A sharp breeze from the north was whipping the water into white peaks of foam; the sky was of a hard brightness and the sun shone brilliantly. The tide was running out, and the rock in the very neck of the haven was thrusting its black crest above the water. A cable’s length this side of it rode the black hull and naked spars of the Swallow—Captain Leigh’s ship.
Lionel stepped along in silence, very gloomy and pensive, hesitating even now. And the crafty mariner reading this hesitation, and anxious to conquer it for the sake of such profit as he conceived might lie in the proposal which he scented, paved the way for him at last.
“I think that ye’ll have some matter to propose to me.” said he slyly. “Out with it, sir, for there never was a man more ready to serve you.”
“The fact is,” said Lionel, watching the other’s face with a sidelong glance, “I am in a difficult position, Master Leigh.”
“I’ve been in a many,” laughed the captain, “but never yet in one through which I could not win. Strip forth your own, and haply I can do as much for you as I am wont to do for myself.”
“Why, it is this wise,” said the other. “My brother will assuredly hang as you have said if he bides him here. He is lost if they bring him to trial. And in that case, faith, I am lost too. It dishonours a man’s family to have a member of it hanged. ’Tis a horrible thing to have happen.”
“Indeed, indeed!” the sailor agreed encouragingly.
“I would abstract him from this,” pursued Lionel, and at the same time cursed the foul fiend that prompted him such specious words to cloak his villainy. “I would abstract him from it, and yet ’tis against my conscience that he should go unpunished for I swear to you, Master Leigh, that I abhor the deed—a cowardly, murderous deed!”
“Ah!” said the captain. And lest that grim ejaculation should check his gentleman he made haste to add—“To be sure! To be sure!”