Page:Quiller-Couch--Old fires and profitable ghosts.djvu/97

Rh which failed to pay the charges of labour, the bulk of the cargo remained in the ship and was broken up by the seas.

This was our tale, false in parts, yet a truer one than either of us, who uttered it, believed. The only person in the plot (so to say) who knew it to be true in substance was my Master. I, his deputy, took this version from him to Clowance with a mind glad enough to be relieved by my duty from having any opinion on the matter. On the one hand, I had the evidence of my senses that the booty had been saved, and too much wit to doubt that any other man would conclude it to be in my Master's possession. On the other, I had never known him lie or deceive, or engage me to further any deceit; his word was his bond, and by practice my word was his bond also. Further, of this affair I had already begun to wonder if a man's plain senses could be trusted, as you will hear reason by-and-by. As for Mr. Saint Aubyn and Mr. Godolphin, they had no doubt at all that my Master was lying, and that I had come wittingly to further his lie. They would have drawn on him (I make no doubt) had he brought the tale in person. From me, his intermediate, they took it as the best to suit with the known truth and present to the Commissioner. All Cornishmen are cousins, you may say. It comes to this, rather: these gentlemen chose to accept my master's lie, and settle with him afterwards, rather than make a clean breast and be forced to wring their small shares out of the Exchequer. A