Читать книгу The Captain from Connecticut онлайн

83 страница из 86

"I'll give you a letter to them."

Hunningford put his fingers to his lean throat, and made a realistic choking noise.

"You must dislike me very much, Captain, if you are so anxious to see me cut off in my respected old age. I will carry any verbal message you like, but nothing in writing."

Peabody looked his puzzlement, and Hunningford condescended to further explanation.

"I come and I go," he said. "My manifold business interests take me from island to island. As far as I know, no suspicion attaches to me. No one, save my negroes, knows that to-day I encounter you just out of sight of land, and to-morrow Captain Gooding. I could be arrested and examined at any moment, and I should welcome this examination, which could only clear my fair name. But if I carried a letter from a United States captain----"

He repeated his former gesture, putting his head on one side, and rolling up his eyes with hideous added realism.

"What do you want done, then?"

"You must tell me your plans, Captain, and I'll pass them on."