"You can't teach me anything about boats!" Captain Dove retorted with crapulous dignity. "So just light—Or, here—gimme the candle, quick! And don't address any more of—of your in—invidious conversation to me."
"I'll see Sallie safely afloat, then," suggested Slyne. "We'll have to send her down in a whip, I expect. The sea's always rising."
"She's a better seaman than you are, Slyne," the old man returned with a sneer. "And she'll go down hand under hand, same as I will—when I'm quite ready. Till then, she'll stay here with me, so that his loving lordship there can have a last, long look at her." He chuckled again, most discordantly. "But—you can see that fat stiff, Jobling, safely afloat, if you like. It will probably take a whip to tempt him to run the risk of a wetting on his way aboard."
The wretched object of his derision gave vent to a very audible groan, hearing which, Captain Dove laughed aloud, with malevolent relish. And, having at length succeeded in striking a match, he turned again toward Carthew, standing still and silent on the other side of the apparently bottomless chasm which cut the pathway apart.
"Are there only the two of you there?" he asked, darting a contemptuous glance at Lord Ingoldsby.
"That's all," Carthew answered tersely. He was absolutely at his wits' end, but thought he could not do better than detain the old man there as long as he might.
"But you've raised the alarm up above?" Captain Dove suggested, with all the fatuous cunning of one half-fuddled. "And we'll have a pack of your cut-throats in petticoats down on us in a minute or two?"
He looked savagely round at Slyne. "I thought I told you to see that bloated Jonah into the boat!" he blurted explosively. And Slyne, with an exasperated shrug of the shoulders, sauntered away, with Mr. Jobling in very uncertain attendance.
"I want to talk to you on my own account for five seconds or so, young-fellow-my-lad," Captain Dove continued, as if in confidence, to Carthew. "But—is it safe, eh? You haven't answered my questions yet. And—you've turned the key on us once already!"
"You're safe from pursuit in the meantime," Carthew reassured him.