But as he settled himself he stretched forth an arm with a snap of the fingers, and in a flash Toby was kneeling by his side.  The arm closed around him like a spring, and Toby uttered a low, tense sob and hid his face.

Thereafter for a while there was no sound beside the throb of engines and wash of water.  Saltash sat absolutely motionless with eyes half-closed.  Save for the vitality of his hold, he might have been on the verge of slumber.  And Toby, crouched with his head in his hands, was as a carven image, neither stirring nor seeming to breathe.

The man moved at length, flicking his eyes open as though some unseen force had prodded him into action.  He spoke with a brevity that might have denoted some sternness but for the close grip of his arm.

“Have you been sulking all this time?”

Toby started at his voice and burrowed a little deeper.  “No, sir.”

“Well, why didn’t you come before?” said Saltash.

“I was—­afraid,” whispered Toby piteously.

“Afraid!  Why on earth?” Saltash’s hand suddenly found and fondled the fair head.  His speech was no longer curt, but gentle, with a half-quizzical tenderness.  “Aren’t you rather an ass, boy?  What was there to be afraid of?”

Toby could not tell him.  He only, after a moment, slipped down in a sitting position by Saltash’s side and rested with more assurance against the encircling arm.

“Come!  I didn’t hurt you much,” said Saltash.

“No, sir.  You didn’t hurt me—­at all.”  Toby stammered a little.  “You—­you—­you meant—­not to hurt me, didn’t you?”

“I must hit harder next time evidently,” observed Saltash, with a squeeze of the narrow shoulders.

“No, sir—­no, sir!  There shan’t be—­a next time!” Toby assured him with nervous vehemence.  “I only did it just to see—­just to see—­I’ll never do it again, sir.”

“Just to see what?” asked Saltash curiously.

But again Toby could not explain himself, and he did not press him.

“Well, you didn’t do it at all well,” he remarked.  “I shouldn’t certainly make a profession of it if I were you.  It’s plainly not your metier.”

He paused, but with the air of having something more to say.  Toby waited silently.

It came with a jerk and a grimace, as if some inner force compelled.  “I can’t talk pi-jaw—­on this subject or any other.  You see—­I’m a rotter myself.”

“You, sir!” Toby lifted his head suddenly and stared at him with eyes that blazed passionately blue in the starlight.  “Don’t believe it!” he said.  “It isn’t true.”

Saltash grinned a little.  His face had the dreary look of something lost that a monkey’s sometimes wears.  “You needn’t believe it, son, if you don’t want to,” he said.  “But it’s true all the same.  That’s why I gave you that licking, see?  Just to emphasize the difference between us.”

“It isn’t true!” Toby asserted again almost fiercely.  “I’d kill anyone else that said so.”