“Hey?” cried that cidevant free-captain suddenly, “here’s one of our officers, let’s turn him over. A hole in the back of his casque by Lucifer; it served him right for turning his back on the enemy.”
Hilo may have recognized the whereabouts sufficiently to make a tolerably fair guess before the other added:
“Oh—oh—the maître-de-camp, De Haye!” But if he did he held his peace, and assisted in ridding the dead cavalier of a few personals.
The Walloon was thick-skulled, but his long service in villany had increased his cunning as a matter of course, and a duller man than he, acquainted with Señor de Ladron’s peculiarities, might have jumped to a like conclusion.
“Bah! he wasn’t a coward after all. The arquebuse that sent this ball was behind him while he faced the Dons. The man you owe a grudge to had better keep awake, Hilo, my lad.”
“You’re a fool,” Hilo returned. “Hold your tongue. Do you wish to bring the Spaniards upon us with your noise?”
To which the other answered sullenly—“You talk as if I wasn’t more than your slave. You’d better mind what you’re about. I aint going to stand it always, even if—here now, what’s to be done with these papers?”
“What is that shining in your hand?”
“A locket, or something of the sort, he had in his breast. Hang it, you want every thing!”
“A locket!” cried his comrade quickly. “Give it here.” Which the other did unwillingly, and the other pocketed after holding it up to the light. Hilo’s mood up to this moment had been none of the sweetest, as the captain could testify, but some virtue existed in the appropriation which was quite irresistible.