Page:Kidnapped (1895 Cassell).djvu/102

 yoursel’! And the best that I can say is this: If ye can set me ashore where I was going, I have that upon me will reward you highly for your trouble.”

“In France?” says the captain. “No, sir; that I cannot do. But where ye come from—we might talk of that.”

And then, unhappily, he observed me standing in my corner, and packed me off to the galley to get supper for the gentleman. I lost no time, I promise you; and when I came back into the round-house, I found the gentleman had taken a money-belt from about his waist, and poured out a guinea or two upon the table. The captain was looking at the guineas, and then at the belt, and then at the gentleman’s face; and I thought he seemed excited.

“Half of it,” he cried, “and I’m your man!”

The other swept back the guineas into the belt, and put it on again under his waistcoat. “I have told ye, sir,” said he, “that not one doit of it belongs to me. It belongs to my chieftain,” and here he touched his hat—“and while I would be but a silly messenger to grudge some of it that the rest might come safe, I should show myself a hound indeed if I bought my own carcase any too dear. Thirty guineas on the seaside, or sixty if ye set me on the Linnhe loch. Take it, if ye will; if not, ye can do your worst.”

“Ay,” said Hoseason. “And if I give ye over to the soldiers?”