" Colonel da Silva was particularly upset. All the trouble he had taken to lead the crows astray had come to nothing. He felt he had failed his old friend Bernard, and he was going to miss Finn.
“I’d better go and see what’s to be done about the Arabella,” he said to his second-in-command. “And all Taverner’s things. The dog’ll go wild, I imagine; he can fend for himself.” He sighed. “I’ll go next week--the Indians will see that no one steals anything. And if those wretched Carter twins come again to ask about the reward, send them away with a flea in their ear. The boy hasn’t been gone three days. Nasty, moneygrubbing little worms!”
And he turned aside and spat out of the window, a thing he hadn’t done since he was a young cadet and thought spitting was the thing to do. "

― Eva Ibbotson , Journey to the River Sea