a smooth lingo when ye get in a trap, but ye can't squirm
out this time. I'll hold the weather of ye this commission, Thirkle."

"Ye'll never get away with it, Bucky. It takes more brains than ye've got
to handle half a ton of gold. Not that ye ain't got the brains so much as
ye don't know how to handle 'em. There's many a man foremast with more
brains than his skipper, but that don't make him skipper."

"It don't take no skipper to handle cargo of this sort," said Buckrow.

"Ye can't do it alone, Bucky. How about coming back for it? What'll ye
tell the crew that comes back with ye? Didn't I plan it all out to get
it? I planned this job and made fair weather of it, didn't I?

"You and the others couldn't done it alone, you know that. Well, ye won't
get away with it, ye can be sure of that. It isn't in ye, Bucky, to do
the job. The hardest is to come yet, as ye'll see when ye go about
getting this away all clear."

"Never ye fret about me, Thirkle. I turned a couple of tricks afore ever
I crossed yer bows, lay to that. I ain't the dog of a sailor ye take me
for. I was a gent once, and I'll be a gent again, and no thanks to ye,
Thirkle. It don't take no brains to spend a guinea at a time, even if a
man knows he has a house full of 'em, and I can be respectable, too, and
take my drink alone in my own house."

"I'll grant ye are no fool, Bucky. It all looks nice and easy, but who
took ye out of the gutter in Sarawak? Where would ye be to-day if it
wasn't for Thirkle? Tell me that, Bucky?"

Buckrow puffed at his cigar a minute, and seemed to consider the matter
before replying.

"I was down and out right enough then, Thirkle, but I ain't the kind to
stay down long, Thirkle. What with fever and jail, and a bad cut in the
hip, I was in a bad way, but no fault of mine, only my cussed luck. I've
had my hard goin' in my life, and now I'm to take it snug."

"The hangman was around the corner that time in Sarawak, and close-hauled
on a course that would fetch him alongside ye in no time," said Thirkle,
looking up and smiling wearily.

"Never ye mind about the hangman, Mr. Thirkle! He was around the corner
with ye, too, for that, and more than once. Ye mind Hong-Kong? Who
saved ye from the hangman in Hong-Kong? I ask ye that. It was Bucky; but
that had no stop on ye here when ye planned to do for me. I saved ye
from the hangman, too, and now the score is even, and ye can't whine if I
come yer own game on ye."

"I don't