Marc shrugged his shoulders at this. He never was a lover of vain argument.
“I wonder where the Black Abbé is at this moment!” was what he said, with no apparent relevancy.
“Not yet in his own place, I fear!” said I.
“The implication is a pious one,” said Marc. “Yonder is the work of him, and of no other. He should be roasting now in the hottest of it.”
I really, at this moment, cared little, and was at loss for reply. But a bullying roar of a voice just behind us saved me the necessity of answering.
“Here, you two! What are ye doin’ here on deck? Git, now! Git, quick!”
The speaker was a big, loose-jointed man, ill-favoured and palpably ill-humoured. I was pleased to note that the middle two of his obtrusive front teeth were wanting, and that his nose was so misshapen as to suggest some past calamitous experience. As I learned afterwards, this was our ship’s first mate. I was too dull of mood—too sick, in fact—to be instantly wroth at his insolence. I looked curiously at him; but Marc answered in a quiet voice:
“Merely waiting here, sir, on parole and by direction, till the proper authorities are ready to take us below!” And he thrust out his manacled hands to show how we were conditioned.
“Well, here’s proper authority, ye’ll find out. Git, er I’ll jog ye!” And he made a motion to take me by the collar.
I stepped aside and faced him. I looked him in the eyes with a sudden rage so deadly that he must have felt it, for he hesitated. I cared nothing then what befell me, and would have smashed him with my iron-locked wrist had he touched me, or else so tripped him and fallen with him that we should have gone overboard together. But he was a brute of some perception, and his hesitancy most likely saved us both. It gave Marc time to shout—“Guards! Guards! Here! Prisoner escaping!”