“No, I can’t go back,” said the skipper. “You see what comes o’ disobedience, my gells. Lively there on that mains’l, d’ye hear?”
“We won’t do it again,” cried the girls, as the schooner came to the mouth of the harbour and they smelt the dark sea beyond. “Take us back.”
“It can’t be done,” said the skipper cheerfully.
“It’s agin the lor, sir,” said Ephraim Biddle solemnly.
“What! Taking my own ship out?” said the skipper in affected surprise. “How was I to know they were there? I’m not going back; ’tain’t likely. As they’ve made their beds so they must lay on ’em.”
“They ain’t got no beds,” said George Scott hastily. “It ain’t fair to punish the gals for us, sir.”
“Hold your tongue,” said the skipper sharply.
“It’s agin the lor, sir,” said Biddle again. “If so be they’re passengers, this ship ain’t licensed to carry passengers. If so be as they’re took out agin their will, it’s abduction—I see the other day a chap had seven years for abducting one gal, three sevens—three sevens is—three sevens is, well, it’s more years than you’d like to be in prison, sir.”
“Bosh,” said the skipper, “they’re stowaways, an’ I shall put ’em ashore at the first port we touch at—Plymouth.”
A heartrending series of screams from the stow-aways rounded his sentence, screams which gave way to sustained sobbing, as the schooner, catching the wind, began to move through the water.