"What became of that carriage?"
"I see the coachman pull up," answered South, "when he was near the gates. I kept my eye on the vehicle, for there were two men on the box of it. When the lock was blowed away, the coachman flogged his horses, and the whole concern disappeared. I expect they drove off to give the alarm, but where to, blowed if I know, for there looked to be no houses for miles around."
"What happened next?" said I.
But what the men now told me substantially corresponded with Don Christoval's story: saving that they were all agreed that the lady was insensible and in the disordered and torn condition in which she had been brought aboard when carried downstairs by the two Spaniards.
"Well," said I, "the schooner's decks must go without a scrubbing this morning. Hurry up that cook and get your breakfast. Butler, you'll relieve me at eight bells. I must find out how the lady is doing. If she's to die—and as she lay in the cabin she looked as if she were dying—Don Christoval will surely not want us to sail him to Cuba."
"But where else?" said Butler, nervously and suspiciously.
"To a French port, if you like—to any place that is near. I wish to get out of this ship."
"So do I," said Butler, looking at his mates, "but we want our money, Mr. Portlack, and we want to be landed in some part of the world where we aren't going to be nabbed for this 'ere job. Let it be Cuba, if you please, sir. 'Tain't too far off—no, by a blooming long chalk, 'tain't too far off."
"Get your breakfast and relieve me at eight," said I, and I walked aft.