'Barnaby, if she is to die, let us all die together.'
'Ay,' he replied, 'though I have, I confess, no great stomach for dying; yet, since we have got her with us, it must be done. 'Tis easy to let the water into the boat, and so, in three minutes, with no suspicion at all, and my mother never to know anything about it, she would have said her last prayers, and we should be all sinking together with never a gasp left.'
I took him after this talk to the sick-house, where Alice was beginning her second night of nursing. Barnaby saluted his sister as briefly as if her presence was the thing he most expected.
The room was lit by a horn lanthorn containing a great candle, which gave enough light to see Robin on the bed and Alice standing beside him. The woman called Deb was sitting on the floor, wrapped in her rug.
'Sis,' said Barnaby, 'I have heard from Humphrey how thou wast cozened out of thy money and enticed on board ship. Well, this world is full of villains, and I doubt whether I shall live to kill them all. One I must kill and one I must cudgel. Patience, therefore, and no more upon this head. Well, Sis, dost love to be a servant?'
'Surely not, Barnaby.'
'Wouldst like to get thy freedom again?'
'I know not the meaning of thy words, brother. Madam says that those who have interest at home may procure pardons for their friends in the Plantations. Also that those whose friends have money may buy their freedom from servitude. I am sure that Mr. Boscorel would willingly do this for Robin and for Humphrey; but for myself—how can I ask him? How can I ever let him know where I am and in what condition?'
'Ay, ay, but I meant not that way, child; wilt thou trust thyself to us?'
She looked at Robin. 'I cannot leave him,' she said.