together, not
even excepting Captain Jordan's, and now must all be broken up; for this
mess of Maskew's has made the place too hot to hold us, and 'twill be
many a long day before another cargo's run on Moonfleet Beach. But how to
get the liquor out of Mohune's vault I know not; and that reminds me, I
have something in my pouches for Elzevir an' thee'; and with that he drew
forth either lapel a great wicker-bound flask. He put one to his lips,
tilting it and drinking long and deep, and then passed it to me, with a
sigh of satisfaction. 'Ah, that has the right smack. Here, take it,
child, and warm thy heart; 'tis the true milk of Ararat, and the last
thou'lt taste this side the Channel.'

Then I drank too, but lightly, for the good liquor was no stranger to me,
though it was only so few months ago that I had tasted it for the first
time in the Why Not? and in a minute it tingled in my fingertips. Soon a
grateful sense of warmth and comfort stole over me, and our state seemed
not so desperate, nor even the night so wild. Ratsey, too, wore a more
cheerful air, and the lines in his face were not so deeply marked; the
golden, sparkling influence of the flask had loosed his tongue, and he
was talking now of what I most wanted to hear.

'Yes, yes, it is a sad break-up, and what will happen to the old Why Not?
I cannot tell. None have passed the threshold since you left, only the
Duchy men came and sealed the doors, making it felony to force them. And
even these lawyer chaps know not where the right stands, for Maskew never
paid a rent and died before he took possession; and Master Block's term
is long expired, and now he is in hiding and an outlaw.

'But I am sorriest for Maskew's girl, who grows thin and pale as any
lily. For when the soldiers brought the body back, the men stood at their
doors and cursed the clay, and some of the fishwives spat at it; and old
Mother Veitch, who kept house for him, swore he had never paid her a
penny of wages, and that she was afear'd to stop under the same roof with
such an evil corpse. So out she goes from the Manor House, leaving that
poor child alone in it with her dead father; and there were not wanting
some to say it was all a judgement; and called to mind how Elzevir had
been once left alone with his dead son at the Why Not? But in the village
there was not a man that doubted that 'twas Block had sent Maskew to his
account, nor did I doubt it either, till a tale got abroad that he wa