Page:Post - Uncle Abner (Appleton, 1918).djvu/113

 The man roused thus abruptly out of sleep had got now some measure of control.

"Randolph," he said, "no law of God or man runs on the sea. The trade of the sea south of the Bermudas is no business for a gentleman or to be told in the land of his father's honor. Abner knew where I'd been!"

"Yes," replied my uncle. "When I saw your bleached face; when I saw your cropped head under the pirate cloth; when I saw you take three steps in your nervous walk, and turn—I knew."

"That I had been in the Spanish Main?" said Dabney.

"That you had been in the penitentiary!" said my uncle.