Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/140

 Then Doctor Syn helped them to move the still unconscious Rash into his own bedroom, leaving the bo'sun and two seamen in charge, the rest of the sailors returning to the vicarage barn; and finally muffling himself in his great cloak he proceeded to the inn to procure a room for the night. Supporting Imogene, he walked ahead, followed by the captain and Jerry Jerk bearing a lantern.

"Potboy?" said the captain on the way.

"Sir?" said Jerry Jerk.

"Are we dreaming, or what?"

"Blowed if I know; wish I did."

On reaching the inn they all agreed that it was none too safe to walk abroad that night again, for fear of that sinister mulatto out upon the Marsh, so they ordered the supper and rooms to be got ready, and for an hour or so the Doctor chatted of indifferent things, just as if nothing had happened.

But the captain kept silent that night; he had many things in his head that he couldn't understand, and the greatest of these was Doctor Syn, that pious old cleric, who was making himself so pleasant over a steaming bowl of punch; and as the parlour clock ticked on, and the room was filled with tobacco smoke which the parson kept sending in thin rings across the fireplace, the captain rubbed his eyes hard, fidgeted and shuffled in his chair, wondering when the dream would stop and he would find himself awake.