Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/35

Rh you stands among 'em. You try. But, oh, Mister Denis"—and he grabbed his arm imploringly—"don't try to understand them dykes at night. She don't talk then, she don't; she does—she just does then. She does all wot the mumbles and murmurs have whispered to do; and it's death on the Marsh at night. I found that out," he added proudly. "Do you know how?"

"How?" queried Denis.

"By going out on her in the day, and gradually getting used to wot she says; that's how; and that's the only way."

Just then a most infernal noise arose from the front of the inn, and before Denis had disengaged himself from the earnest clutches of his guardian angel, and before the murmurs of Mr. Mipps had ceased in the kitchen, the bar was swarming with seamen—sailors—rough mahogany men with pigtails and brass rings, smelling of tar and, much to the admiration of Jerk, reeking of rum, filling the room with their jostling, spitting, and laughing, and their calls on the potboy to serve 'em with drink. But their entrance was so sudden, their appearance so startling, and their behaviour so alarming, that the young hangman was for the moment off his guard, for there he stood open-mouthed and awestruck, watching the giants help themselves freely from the great barrels. To Denis they had come with no less surprise. He had seen preventer men before;