"Here's no time for dreams!" says Penfeather, ramming home the charge of his second pistol, "Is the passage clear?"
"Save for the matter of a few kegs, Cap'n, but 'twill serve."
"We start in half an hour, Joel."
"The three o' you, Cap'n?"
"Aye, we must be aboard as soon as maybe now."
"Captain," says Godby, "speaking as a master-gunner, a mariner and a peddler, I'm bold to say as there's nought like bite and sup to hasten a man for a journey or aught beside--flog me else! And there's nought more heartening than ham or neat's tongue, or brisket o' beef, the which I chanced to spy i' the kitchen--"
"Why then, master-gunner," says Penfeather, "go you and engage those same in close action and I'll join ye as soon as I've shifted these rags o' mine."
"Adam," says I, unstrapping my wallet as Bym and Godby descended the stair, "if we are to have our throats cut to-night, 'twere as well I handed back your chart first"; and I laid it on the table.
"Why 'tis as safe with you, comrade--but as you will!" says he, slipping the chain about his neck. "As for any throat-slitting, Martin, you'll find that with danger my inborn caution groweth to timidity--"
"Ha, yes!" I nodded. "Such timidity as walks under the very noses of desperate, well-armed rogues of a moonlight night."
"Why, the moon is down--or nearly so, Martin. And then, besides, this trim little inn hath divers exits discreetly non-apparent. 'Twas a monastery once, I've heard."
"And now a smuggling-ken it seems, Adam."
"Even so, comrade, and no place better suited! And there's the Bo's'n hailing!" says he, as a hoarse roar of "Supper O!" reached us. "Go down, Martin, I stay but to make things ship-shape!" and he nodded towards the books and papers that littered the table. Upon the stairs I met Godby, who brought me to a kitchen, very spacious and lofty, paved with great flagstones and with groined arches supporting the roof, and what with this and the wide fireplace flanked with fluted columns and enriched by carvings, I did not doubt that here had once stood a noble abbey or the like.
"Pal," said Godby, as I stared about me, "you'd never guess as there be nigh three hundred kegs stowed hereabouts besides bales and the like, choke me else! Ha, many's the good cargo I've helped Jo and the lads to run--eh, Joel?"
"So you're a smuggler, Godby," says I.
"Cock," says Bym reproachfully, and setting a goodly cheese on the table with a bang, "say free-trader, cock--t'other 'un's a cackling word and I don't like cackle--"