"I reckon--knowing what friends we'd been--she left it to me to break
the news."

"I won't believe it," declared 'Bias slowly. But he sat staring
straight at the horizon, and after each puff at the pipe Cai could hear
him breathing hard.

"The child's not given to lyin'. And yet I don't see--Rogers bein'
helpless to open the safe on his own account. At the worst 'tis a bad
job for ye, 'Bias."

"Eh? . . . 'Means sellin' up an' startin' afresh: that's all--always
supposin' there's jobs to be found, at our age. I don't know as there
wouldn't be consolations. This here life ashore isn't all I fancied
it."

Now Cai had in mind a great renunciation: but unfortunately he could not
for the moment discover any way to broach it. He played to gain time,
therefore, awaiting opportunity.

"As for getting a job," he suggested, "there's no need to be downcast;
no need at all. If the worst came to the worst, there's the _Hannah
Hoo_, f'r instance, and a providence she never found a buyer."

"Ay, to be sure--I'd forgot the bark'nteen."

"Come!" said Cai with a quick smile, playing up towards his grand
_coup_. "What would you say to shippin' aboard the _Hannah Hoo?_"

"What?--as mate under _you_? . . . I'd say," answered 'Bias slowly,
"as I'd see you damned first."

"But"--Cai stared at him in bewilderment--"who was proposin' any such
thing? As skipper I thought o' you--what elst? Leastways--"

"And you?"

"Me? . . . But why? There's no call for _me_ goin' to sea again."

"Ah, to be sure," said 'Bias bitterly, "I was forgettin'. You'll stay
ashore and make up your losses by marryin'!"

"But I haven't _had_ any losses!" stammered Cai. "Not beyond the
hundred pound in the _Saltypool_. . . . Didn't I make that plain?"

"No, you didn't." 'Bias laid down his pipe. "Are you standin' there
and tellin' me that _your_ papers are all right and safe?"

"To be sure they are. Rogers handed 'em over to me, and I took 'em home
and locked 'em in my strong-box--it may be four months ago."

"Ay, that would be about the time. . . . Well, I congratulate you," said
'Bias, with deepening bitterness of accent. "The luck's yours, every
way, and that there's no denyin'."

"Wait a bit, though. You haven't heard me finish."

"Well?"

"Since this news came I've been thinkin' pretty hard over one or two
things . . . over our difference, f'r instance, an' the cause of it.
To be plain, I want a word with you about--well, ab