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But W. and W. went into this business themselves, they were on the crook. Now WE'RE on the square, we only stumbled into it; and that merchant has just got to squeal, and I'm the man to see that he squeals good. No, sir! there's some stuffing to this Farallone racket after all. 'Go it, cap! cried Huish. 'Yoicks! Forrard! 'Old 'ard! There's your style for the money!
For the Trinity Hall Davis was prepared; he would barricade the house, and die there defending it, like a rat in a crevice. But for the other? The cruise of the Farallone, into which he had plunged, only a fortnight before, with such golden expectations, could this be the nightmare end of it? The ship rotting at anchor, the crew stumbling and dying in the scuppers?
It was plain, besides, that the Farallone had been descried some time before at sea, and the inhabitants were prepared for its reception. Mechanically the orders were obeyed, and the ship berthed; and the three adventurers gathered aft beside the house and waited, with galloping pulses and a perfect vacancy of mind, the coming of the stranger who might mean so much to them.
We just put this Farallone before the wind, and run till we're well to looard of our port of departure, and reasonably well up with some other place where they have an American consul. Down goes the Farallone, and good-bye to her! A day or so in the boat; the consul packs us home, at Uncle Sam's expense, to 'Frisco; and if that merchant don't put the dollars down, you come to me!"
Attwater looked steadily back over his shoulders as he sat; he did not once remove his eyes from the Farallone and the group on her quarter-deck beside the house, till his boat ground upon the pier. Thence, with an agile pace, he hurried ashore, and they saw his white clothes shining in the chequered dusk of the grove until the house received him.
It was not possible for him to overhear the suppliant's petitions, which he listened to some while in a very mingled mood of humour and pity: and it was only when his own name began to occur and to be conjoined with epithets, that he at last laid his hand on the captain's shoulder. "Sorry to interrupt the exercise," said he; "but I want you to look at the Farallone."
Sherry, hock, and claret succeeded each other, and the Farallone champagne brought up the rear with the dessert. It was plain that, like so many of the extremely religious in the days before teetotalism, Attwater had a dash of the epicure.
Before his closed eyes the skiff had been for some time tacking towards the distant and deserted Farallone; and presently the figure of Herrick might have been observed to board her, to pass for a while into the house, thence forward to the forecastle, and at last to plunge into the main hatch.
And meanwhile, in the waist, up to his knees in water so low the schooner lay the captain was hacking at the fore-sheet with a pocket-knife. It was a question of seconds, for the Farallone drank deep of the encroaching seas.
It is because I have nothing to do with the Sea Ranger and the people you drowned, or the Farallone and the champagne that you stole. That is your account with God; He keeps it, and He will settle it when the clock strikes. In my own case, I have nothing to go on but suspicion, and I do not kill on suspicion, not even vermin like you.
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