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I'll get this gold away neat and clean if it takes me twenty years, and I'm the lad that can wait until the time is ripe." "Maybe ye can," said Thirkle, "but all I want you to remember is that Thirkle said ye couldn't, and my words will come to ye when ye take those thirteen steps up to the rope. Just keep that in mind, Bucky."
I struck a match then, that he might see me, and by sign-language tried to make him understand that we should go on deck and search for Thirkle and the others. Before we had finished our silent parley I heard a noise at the scuttle, and then Riggs whispered: "Rajah! Rajah!"
"We might as well say good-bye now," I said as mournfully as I could. "You remember I treated you pretty well in Manila, and I'm sorry for you now. It doesn't matter much with me how I end now, because Thirkle has the drop on me, but I'm sorry for you you ought to have your share of it, and Thirkle ought to play fair with you, but he won't.
Maybe ye can fool the others, but I'm Bad Buckrow, I am, and I don't let the like of you, Mr. Thirkle, hang nothin' on me leastways, not so easy as ye looked for. Why, I had my eye on ye and every move ye made after ye sent Reddy and Jim away to slit one another's throats! Thought I'd fall for it, did ye? See what come of it? Ye see, don't ye? I'm Bad Buckrow."
"And when it's all done we can go to the devil and you'll take the gold. I know the palaver, Thirkle. If ye please, I'll take my chances alone with the gold," said Buckrow. "Then hang! I wash my hands of the two of ye, and may the devil mend ye!"
He says he can go it alone now, and doesn't need Thirkle; but wait until the death-watch is pacing outside the door like a Swedish skipper, and ye've only got an hour left on earth, and then ye'll wish ye'd stuck to Thirkle. "I'll bet all this gold here ye'll wish ye had Thirkle then, but Thirkle won't be there to help. I say stick to Bucky if ye like, but ye'll find he ain't Thirkle.
"Come along below, Jim, and let 'em go for now. Quick, or the mate'll have ye. Thirkle said he'd have the fo'c's'le by now. He run the chinks out, him and Petrak. Scuttled 'em aft. Come below." "Not till Mr. Mate 'as this in 'is ribs," said Long Jim. "Ye fool here they be, on us, and Harris with a couple of guns.
Thirkle, and I'll thank ye to pipe down and wait until we ask ye to talk." "What's up now, Bucky?" asked Petrak. "What's wrong now, and what's wrong with Thirkle's head? Been up " "We got Thirkle, too, that's what. He tried to do for me and I sapped him, and there he is, nice as pie. Wanted it all, he did, Reddy. Don't he look calm and peaceful there, with his hands crossed like a dead one?
"That's all right," growled Buckrow, who was in an ill humour. "We was to work even, and ye ain't been doin' yer part, Thirkle. A bargain's a bargain I'd have ye know, and I'm to see ye keep to yer part of it." "Pipe down pipe down, Bucky," said Petrak, who seemed in glee after the brandy he had had. "It's the drink talkin', Bucky.
He had caught enough in Thirkle's manner since the death of Buckrow to see that he was not going to get a just division of the loot, at the very least, and, knowing the ruthlessness of his master, he had doubts about escaping with his life. Besides, I believed he had been tempted by the thought that he might kill Thirkle and then have it all to himself. "He told Long Jim to kill you?
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