Through the main deck to the gun-room and up into the forecastle there drifted smoke from the cookroom in the hold, which was the way of those old ships. At times it set choking the men at the pumps; it eddied¹ about the water cask before the mainmast and about the riding butts² by the heel of the bowsprit, and went curling out of the hawse pipes. It crept insidiously³ into the forecastle, and the men cursed fluently when their eyes began to smart and their noses to sting.  
There were seven men in the forecastle and Martin Barwick was one of the seven, although his watch was on deck and he had no right to be there. Philip Marsham, whose watch was below, had stayed because he suspected there was some strange thing in the wind and was determined⁴ to learn if possible what it was. Two of the others were younkers of the Rose of Devon, who suspected nothing, and the remaining three were of the rescued men.
 
There was a step above and a round head appeared in the hatch. The dim smoky light gave a strange appearance to the familiar features.
 
"Ho, cook!" Martin cried, and thumped⁵ on the table. "Come thou down and bring us what tidings the boy hath brought thee in the cookroom. Yea, though the cook labour in the very bowels⁶ of the ship, is it not a proverb that he alone knows all that goes on?"
 
Slipping through the hatch, the cook drew a great breath and sat him down by the table. "She was the Blue Friggat, I hear, and seven weeks from Virginia—God rest the souls of them who went down in her!"
 
"From Virginia!" quoth Martin. "Either th' art gulled⁷, in truth, or th' art the very prince of liars⁸. From Virginia! Ho ho!" And Martin laughed loud and long.
 
Now it was for such a moment that Philip Marsham was waiting, nor had he doubted the moment would come. For although Martin had gone apart with the men who had come from the foundered⁹ ship, the fellow's head, which was larger than most heads, could never keep three ideas in flourish at the same time. To learn what game was in the wind there was need only to keep close at Martin's heels until his blunders should disclose his secrets.
 
"The Devil take thee, thou alehouse dog!" the cook cried in a thick, wheezy voice. "Did not the boy bring me word straight when he came down for a can of boiling water with which this Captain Jordan would prepare a wondrous¹⁰ drink for Captain Candle?"
 
"And did not I part with this Captain Jordan not—Wow-ouch!" With a yell Martin tipped back in his chair and went over. Crawling on his feet, he put on a long face and rubbed his head and hurled¹¹ a flood of oaths at the sailor beside him, a small man and round like an apple, who went among his fellows—for he was one of those the Rose of Devon had rescued—by the name of Harry¹² Malcolm.
 
"Nay¹³," the little round man very quietly replied, "I fear you not, for all your bluster¹⁴. Put your hand on your tongue, fellow, and see if you cannot hold it. I had not intended to tip you over. It was done casually¹⁵."
 
"And why, perdy, did'st thou jam thy foot on mine till the bones crunched¹⁶? I'll have thy heart's blood."
 
"Nay," the man replied, so quietly, so calmly that he might have been a clerk sitting on his stool, "you have a way of talking overmuch, fellow, and I have a misliking of speech that babbles¹⁷ like a brook¹⁸. It can make trouble."
 
Martin stopped as if he had lost his voice, but continued to glare at the stranger, who still regarded him with no concern.
 
"It is thy weakness, fellow," he said, "and—" he looked very hard at Martin—"it may yet be the occasion of thine untimely end."
 
For a moment Martin stood still, then, swallowing once or twice, he went out of the dimly lighted forecastle into the darkness of the deck.
 
"He appears," the little man said, addressing the others, "to be an excitable fellow. Alas¹⁹, what trouble a brisk tongue can bring upon a man!"
 
The little man, Harry Malcolm, looked from one to another and longest at Phil.
 
Now Phil could not say there had been a hidden meaning in the hard look the little man had given Martin or in the long look the little man had given Phil himself. But he knew that whether this was so or not, there was no more to be got that night from Martin, and he in turn, further bepuzzled by the little man's words and after all not much enlightened by Martin's blunder, left the forecastle to seek the main deck.
 
Passing the great cannon²⁰ lashed²¹ in their places, and leaving behind him the high forecastle, he came into the shadow of the towering poop on which the lantern glowed yellow in the blue moonlight, and continued aft to the hatch ladder. Already it was long past midnight.
 
He imagined he heard voices in the great cabin, and although he well enough knew that it was probably only imagination,—for the cabin door was closed fast,—the presence of the Old One on board the Rose of Devon was enough to make a man imagine things, who had sat in Mother Taylor's cottage and listened to talk of the gentlemen who sailed from Bideford. He paused at the head of the ladder and listened, but heard nothing more.
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