"Call it six mile," answered the captain.
"It would be too far to row," said Don Christoval. "We must creep farther in."
"At what hour, sir," I asked, "do you wish to land?"
"It must be past midnight," answered the Spaniard, "when the house is hushed, and when, should firearms be used, there will be no one awake in the country around to hear the reports."
"And how long is the job going to take us, I wonder?" said Captain Dopping, cutting off a piece of black tobacco with a big clasp knife, whose blade glittered in the moonlight, and burying the morsel in his cheek.
"An hour—easily in an hour," answered Don Christoval, speaking rapidly and breathing swiftly. "Mark now how I piece out the time: three quarters of an hour to row ashore, half an hour to march to the house, that makes an hour and a quarter; an hour in executing our errand, that makes two hours and a quarter; and then another hour and a quarter to regain the schooner, that makes three hours and a half in all. Call the time four o'clock when we sail away, by five we shall be out of sight of land."