"Cut it out, keep quiet—we get the money if you do," said Smart. "What good will it do you to get them angry, so they won't want to charter us again? Man! it's good money, thirty dollars a day—let it go at that."
The pale-eyed man looked at the mate. "It's about dinner-time, isn't it?" he asked. "We're mighty hungry, and if you can let the cook get to work, we'll be ready."
"Where's the soft grub fo' dat invalid?" growled Bahama Bill. "I thought he couldn't eat hoag an' hominy—Heldron, yo' Dutchman, git the fire started an' let the perfessers eat as soon as yo' kin."
They were well down the channel now, but Smart, on looking back, saw a small schooner making sail hastily. She started off, heading in their wake, and about a mile astern.
The passenger with the pale eyes watched her sharply for some moments, and the benevolent expression faded from his face. The thin man, the invalid, started up and gazed at her, but was pulled down again by his companion.
"That fellow astern," said the charterer, his high nose sniffing sneeringly at the schooner, "thinks he has a smart vessel, and bet us this morning that he could beat this old sloop to the Fowey Rocks. Don't let him come up on us whatever you do. I'll give you ten dollars extra to-day if you run him out of sight before dark."
"Looks like a smart vessel," said Bahama Bill, gazing aft. "I ain't much at racing, but give this sloop a good breeze, an' maybe you'll land yo' money."
The passengers ate their meal, and to the credit of the invalid be it said that he ate more of the "hoag" than his companion. He also put away an immense portion of the hominy, and his thin face seemed less wrinkled when he appeared on deck to take a look at the schooner.
Smart watched the following vessel, and saw that she was gaining. The expression of the pale-eyed man was even more sinister than before, and the quiet, urbane look gave way to one of ferocity. The high, thin nose seemed like the beak of some bird of prey, and the moustache bristled with anxiety and apparent vexation. The thin-faced invalid's expression was also one of evident concern, the lines of his face drawing tighter as the distance lessened between the two ships.
"Who's that fellow that looks like the marshal abo'd the schooner?" asked the mate.