“Halcro!” echoed Cleveland, his eyes sparkling with surprise—“Claud Halcro?—why, he went ashore at Inganess with Minna and her sister—Where are they?”
“Why, that is just what I did not want to tell you,” replied the confidant—“yet hang me if I can help it, for I cannot baulk a fine situation.—That start had a fine effect—O ay, and the spy-glass is turned on the House of Stennis now!—Well, yonder they are, it must be confessed—indifferently well guarded, too. Some of the old witch’s people are come over from that mountain of an island—Hoy, as they call it; and the old gentleman has got some fellows under arms himself. But what of all that, noble Captain!—give you but the word, and we snap up the wenches to-night—clap them under hatches—man the capstern by daybreak—up topsails—and sail with the morning tide.”
“You sicken me with your villainy,” said Cleveland, turning away from him.
“Umph!—villainy, and sicken you!” said Bunce—“Now, pray, what have I said but what has been done a thousand times by gentlemen of fortune like ourselves?”
“Mention it not again,” said Cleveland; then took a turn along the deck, in deep meditation, and, coming back to Bunce, took him by the hand, and said, “Jack, I will see her once more.”
“With all my heart,” said Bunce, sullenly.
“Once more will I see her, and it may be to abjure at her feet this cursed trade, and expiate my offences”——
“At the gallows!” said Bunce, completing the sentence—“With all my heart!—confess and be hanged is a most reverend proverb.”
“Nay—but, dear Jack!” said Cleveland.
“Dear Jack!” answered Bunce, in the same sullen tone—“a dear sight you have been to dear Jack. But hold your own course—I have done with caring for you for ever—I should but sicken you with my villainous counsels.”