Page:The Dark Frigate (Hawes).djvu/44

of for himself, nor had he a mind to it now. But he knew their game and, which was more, he knew that he held a higher trump than they. He leaned back and looked up at them and very calmly smiled.

“How now!” the spokesman blustered. “Dost laugh at a tale so sad as mine? I ha’ killed an Italian fencing-master in my time. I ha’ fought prizes at half the fairs in England.”

His companion laid a hand on his arm and whispered in his ear.

“Nay,” he retorted angrily, “’t is nought but a country fellow. I’ll soon overbear him.”

Again Phil smiled. “Hast thou never,” he said in a quiet voice, “heard the man at the mainmast cry, ‘A liar, a liar!’ and for a week kept clean the beakhead and chains? Nay, I ’ll be bound thou hast sat in bilbowes or been hauled under the keel. The marshal doubtless knew thee well.”

The faces of the two men changed. The fat man who had been the spokesman opened his mouth and was at loss for words, but the thin, dark man began to laugh and kept on laughing till he could hardly stand.

“We ha’ reached for a pheasant and seized a hawk,” he cried. ‘‘Whence came you, my gay young gallant, and what are you doing here?”

“Why, I am here to set myself up for a farmer. I had a reason for leaving London —”

Again the thin man burst out laughing. “Why, then,” quoth he, “we are three men of like minds. So had Martin and I a reason for leaving London, too. And you are one who hath smelt salt water in your time. Nay, deny it not. Martin’s sails are still a-flutter for wind, so sorely did you take him aback. ’T was a shrewd thrust and it