It was an odd companionship which only the isolated life they led during
those few days could have developed along those particular lines. When
Saltash was bored he amused himself with his protege, teaching him
picquet and chess, and finding in him an apt and eager pupil. There was a
good deal of the gambler's spirit in Toby, and Saltash idly fostered it
because it gave him sport. He laughed at his opponent's keenness,
supplied stakes for the game, even good-naturedly let himself be beaten.
And then one day he detected Toby cheating. It was an end that he might
have foreseen. He had encouraged the fever, he had practically sown the
seeds; but, strangely, he was amazed, more disconcerted than he had been
for years by the consequences. For it was not his way to disturb himself
over anything. His principles were easy to laxness. But that Toby--the
urchin he had sheltered and nursed like a sick puppy--should have done
this thing somehow cut clean through his complacence.
"I'm going to give you a licking for that," he said, black brows drawn to
a stern line. "You can go below and wait for it."
Toby went like an arrow, and Saltash spent the next half-hour pacing the
deck, cursing himself, the youngster, and the insane and ridiculous Fate
that had linked them together.
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