"The captain's watch?" cried he, with a short loud laugh. "You are modest, Mr. ——"
"Paul Rodney," said I, seeing he stopped for my name.
"Yes, modest, Mr. Paul Rodney. That watch is yours, sir; and you mean it shall be yours."
"Well, Mr. Tassard," said I, colouring in spite of myself, though he could not witness the change in such a light as that, "I felt this, that if I left the watch in the captain's pocket it was bound to go to the bottom ultimately, and——"
"Bah!" he interrupted, with a violent flourish of the hand. "Let us save the schooner, if possible; there will be more than one watch for your pocket, more than one doubloon for your purse. Meanwhile, to dinner! My stupor has converted me into an empty hogshead, and it will take me a fortnight of hard eating to feel that I have broken my fast."
With a blow of the chopper he struck off a lump of the frozen wine, and then fell to, eating perhaps as a man might be expected to eat who had not had a meal for eight-and-forty years.
"There are two of your companions on deck," said I.
He started.
"Frozen," I continued; "they'll be the bodies of Trentanove and Joam Barros?"
He nodded.