hat supper is
to cook and our meat nearly all gone, Martin, though we have plenty of
plantains left." So I told her I would go fetch what remained of the
carcass after supper, so soon as the moon rose. And now whiles she
bustled to and fro, I chose me a little piece of wood, and sitting
where I might watch her at her labours, began to carve her the hair pin
I had promised.

"Our third cave should make us a very good larder!" says she busy at
her new table preparing supper.

"Aye."

"'Tis so marvellous cool!"

"Aye."

"I think, because the pool lieth above it."

"Mayhap!"

"Indeed, these are wonderful caves, Martin."

"They are."

"Who lived here before us, I wonder?"

"Penfeather, like as not."

"Why should you think this?"

"Well, that door yonder was never a carpenter's work, yet 'tis well
made and furnished with a loop-hole, narrow and horizontal to give a
lateral fire, the which I have seen but once ere this. Then again the
timbers of this door do carry many marks of shot, and Adam Penfeather
is no stranger to such, violence and danger, steel and bullet seem to
follow him."

"Why so, Martin? He hath ever seemed a man very quiet and gentle, most
unlike such rough sailor-men as I have seen hitherto."

"True," says I, "but 'neath this attitude of mind is a wily cunning and
desperate, bloodthirsty courage and determination worthy any pirate or
buccaneer of them all."

"Why, courage and determination are good things, Martin. And as for
Master Penfeather, he is as I do know a skilful navigator and very well
read, more especially in the Scriptures, and methought your friend?"

"For his own purposes!" quoth I.

"And what are these, Martin?"

At this I merely scowled at the wood I was carving, whereupon she
questions me further:

"Master Adam is such a grave and sober man!"

"True!" says I.

"And so wise in counsel--"

"Say, rather, cunning!"

"Though to be sure he once had a poor man beaten cruelly."

"Wherein he was exactly right!" says I, grinding my teeth at memory of
Red Andy. "Aye, there Penfeather was very right, this fellow was a
vile and beastly rogue!"

"What dreadful thing had he done, Martin?"

"Stared at you!" says I, and stopped; and glancing up, found her
regarding me with look mighty strange.

"Did you mind so much?" she questioned.

"No whit, madam. Why should I?"

"Aye, why indeed!" says she and turns to her cooking again and I to my
carving, yet in a little,