Page:The Dark Frigate (Hawes).djvu/186

Uphill and down they went, through thickets and streams, over ledges and sandy slides, round dank old fallen logs and along firm beaches, back to their dark frigate, with their labour for their pains. And so, by broad daylight, weary and hungry and too angry for civil speech, they came to the Rose of Devon. The younkers trotted along, dog-tired, and the men tramped in as best they could. There were hard words on this side and hard words on that, and hands were clapped on knives for no cause at all.

They thought it queer, when in the gray morning they came sliding down to the ship, with a rattle of pebbles and loose earth, that they found her so still, and only the cook on her deck, and himself in a cold sweat of fear.

"I would have nought to do with it," he cried, and being still mindful of his thirsty hours in bilboes, he shook in his shoes lest they fix upon him a share of the blame for that which had occurred in their absence.

"With what and whom would'st thou have nought to do?" the Old One demanded, and he showed a face that made the cook's teeth rattle.

"With them -- they've gone."

"Who hath gone?"

"Will Canty and Joe Kirk. They took the shallop and bread and beer."

"It seems," said the Old One, and in a strangely quiet voice, "that the edge that is nicked is not Will Canty's. Is it thine, Jacob, or mine?"

The cook thought that either he or the Old One had lost his wits, for he made no sense of the words; but Harry Malcolm and Jacob knew what was meant, and Philip Marsham made a sharp guess at it.