“What!” he said, “I did not expect this—pretty quickly into your apprenticeship. What brings you here! And you, too, Menaida, old man?”
“Nothing simpler,” answered Uncle Zachie. “I am accompanying Mrs. Coppinger back to the Glaze.”
“What, married in the morning and roving the downs at night?”
“I have been to Polzeath after my workbox—here it is,” said Judith.
“Oh, you are out of your road to Pentyre—I suppose you know that,” sneered Scantlebray.
“Naturally,” replied Mr. Menaida. “It is dark enough for any one to stray. Why! you don’t suspect me, do you, of showing false lights and endeavoring to wreck vessels! That would be too good a joke—and the offence, as I told you—capital.”
Scantlebray uttered an oath and turned to the men and said: “Captain Cruel is too deep for us this time. I thought he had sent the boy out with the ass—instead he has sent his wife—a wife of a few hours, and never told her the mischief she was to do with the lantern—hark!”
From the sea the boom of a gun.
All stood still as if rooted to the spot.
Then again the boom of a gun.