you have had a meal your first business must be to get yourselves
clean. You will remain here while Billy and I go up to the house and
bring you down some breakfast; after which I must see what can be done
to make you reasonably presentable."

"All right. Mister," answered Svorenssen, "we'll keep clear of the
'ouse, never fear. We don't want to be tore to pieces by no leopards,
after tryin' our utmost for over a year to get to ye and lend a hand in
whatever you might be doin' to get away from this ruddy hole. We're
just as anxious as you can be to get away from it, you may bet on that."

"Well," said I to Billy, as we turned away to retrace our steps to the
house, our bath completely forgotten, "this reappearance of Svorenssen
and Van Ryn is a surprise, and not altogether an agreeable one at that.
I never particularly liked either of them; they impressed me from the
very beginning as being insubordinate of disposition and impatient of
discipline; and I have not forgotten the character that the boatswain
and Chips gave them. How did they behave before I joined the _Yorkshire
Lass_, Billy? Had your father ever any trouble with them?"

"Yes, in some ways a good deal," answered Billy. "What the boatswain
and Chips said about them was quite true. They and the other two
foreigners were always quarrelling with the rest of the forecastle
hands; they wanted to do only just what work suited them, and not what
Father wanted them to do; and from what the other men said I believe
that the Dagoes would have mutinied if it had not been for the chance of
getting hold of and sharing the treasure."

Returning to the house, Billy and I snatched a hasty meal, and then we
started back for the beach, bearing with us food, two suits of the
lightest clothing the slop-chest afforded, two blue-striped shirts, two
cloth caps, soap, towels, a comb, and a pair of scissors. The two
seamen were too hungry to talk much while discussing their meal, nor did
I attempt to question them just then, curbing my curiosity until a more
favourable opportunity to satisfy it should present itself; and when the
pair had finished eating I marched them off to the river where, handing
them the soap and towels, I bade them strip, enter the water, and
thoroughly cleanse themselves from the accumulated grime of a year's
neglect. This at length done, I set them to cut each other's hair and
beard and generally render themselves as decent looking and respectable