“But why?” “Why?” “Is there no chance of something coming along,” said I, “in which we can send her to a port this side America?” “She knows there is a big treasure on board.” “That’s sure.” “She knows that it is Spanish money, and how got by us.” “True.” “Well, now, send her out of this brig with our secret in her head, and we stand to be chased by the chap we put her aboard of.” “Not if she be an English ship.” “I’d trust no Englishman in this part of the world. Figure a craft as heavily armed again as our little brig; figure _that_, and then count our crew forward there. I’ll have no risks. I’ll speak nothing. We have got what we came to fetch, and this is to be my last voyage. I am a rich man now. There are thirty-six thousand pounds belonging to me below. No, Fielding, the lady will have to go along with us. You shall teach her English, she shall teach me Spanish. She shall pour out tea, act the hostess, sing; the very spirit of melody swells her fine throat every time she opens her lips. She shall make dresses for herself and under-linen.” “And the two Spaniards?” “They must go along with us too. They are a worthless, skulking pair of fellows, I fear; but we must keep ’em.” “They get no dollars?” said I. “Not so much as shall buy them soap. We have saved their lives; that’s good pay for such service as they’ll render. What shall you do with your money?” “Well, I have often considered, captain,” I answered. “I believe I shall buy a little house, put what remains out at interest, and go a-fishing for the rest of my days. And you?” “First of all,” he answered, “I shall knock off the sea. I shall then strike deep inland and look for a little estate in the heart of a midland shire. I do not know that I shall marry. Should I marry, it will be with a lady of my own degree in life. I will play the gentleman only so far as I am entitled by my condition to represent one. I will be no sham. There is no yardarm high enough for the hanging of the men who, having got or inherited money, set up as country gentlemen, still splashed with the mud of the gutter out of which their fathers crawled, shaking themselves--illiterate, vulgar, scorned by the footmen who stand behind their chairs, belly-crawlers, title-lickers, toadies. Faugh! I once made a rhyme on shams--four lines--the only rhymes I ever made in my life: “Pull up your blinds that all the world may see The house you live in and the man you be. The blinds are up, and now the sun hath shone: The house is empty and the man is gone.” “By which you mean to imply----” said I. “By which I mean to imply,” he interrupted, “that if the lines don’t tell their own story they must be deuced bad.”