“Go on.” Coppinger strode once across the room, then back again. “Go on,” he said, savagely.
“Old Mr. Menaida offers to take Jamie with him. He intends to settle at Oporto, near his son, who has been appointed to a good situation there. He will gladly undertake the charge of Jamie. Let Jamie go with them. There he can do no harm.”
“What, go—without you! Did they not want you to go, also?”
Judith hesitated and flushed. There was a single tallow candle on the table. Coppinger took it up, snuffed it, and held the flame to her face to study its expression. “I thought so,” he said, and put down the light again.
“Jamie is useful to Mr. Menaida,” pleaded Judith, in some confusion, and with a voice of tremulous apology.
“He stuffs birds so beautifully, and Uncle Zachie—I mean Mr. Menaida—has set his heart on making a collection of the Spanish and Portuguese birds.”
“Oh, yes; he understands the properties of arsenic,” said Coppinger, with a scoff.
Judith’s eyes fell. Captain Cruel’s tone was not reassuring.
“You say that you care not where Jamie be, so long as he is where he cannot hurt you,” said Judith.
“I did not say that,” answered Coppinger. “I said that he must be placed where he can injure no one.”