"I claim to be reasonably sensible," answered Christy. "As you have done
me the honor to visit me in my cabin, Captain Flanger, it is reasonable
to suppose you have some object in view, for I do not regard it as a
merely friendly call."
Though the young officer was prudent and discreet, he did not lose his
self-possession, and he smiled as though he had been simply the host in
the dining-room of the mansion at Bonnydale. There was a certain humor
about the intruder which would have pleased him under other
circumstances.
"Quite right, captain!" exclaimed the visitor. "I have an object in
view, and both my inclination and my duty are urging me to carry it
out. How your boat happened to capture the Magnolia is beyond my
comprehension up to the present moment, though I think the principal
reason was the lack of a sufficiently osseous vertebra on the part of
your worthy uncle, Colonel Passford. Then the officer in charge of the
cutter did not do what I expected him to do. Instead of falling back
when he and one of his crew were wounded, as he ought to have done, and
using the heavy revolvers with which his men were armed, he did not
delay a moment, but smashed into the sloop, and jerked his men on board
of her, cutlass in one hand and revolver in the other; and that brought
me to the end of my rope.
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