n waved away the proffered hand
with a bitter smile.

"You do not know," he said, "who it is you would shake hands with--an
outlaw--a criminal. Ah, you have heard? Then Renny, I suppose, has
told you."

"Yes," groaned the other, holding his friend by both shoulders and
gazing sorrowfully into the haggard face, "the man may die--oh, Jack,
Jack, how could you be so rash?"

"I can't say how it all happened," answered Captain Jack, falling to
his walk to and fro again in the extremity of his distress, and ever
and anon mopping his brow. "I felt such security in this place. All
was loaded but the last barrel, when, all of a sudden, from God knows
where, the man sprang on me and thrust his dark lantern in my face.
'It is Smith,' I heard him say. I do believe now that he only wanted
to identify me. No man in his senses could have dared to try and
arrest me surrounded by my six men. But I had no time to think then,
Adrian. I imagined the fellow was leading a general attack.... If that
last barrel was seized the whole secret was out; and that meant ruin.
Wholesale failure seemed to menace me suddenly in the midst of my
success. I had a handspike in my hand with which I had been helping to
roll the kegs. I struck with it, on the spur of the moment; the man
went down on the spot, with a groan. As he fell I leaped back, ready
for the next. I called out, 'Stretchers, lads; they want to take your
captain?' My lads gathered round me at once. But there was silence;
not another creature to be seen or heard. They set to work to get that
last blessed bit of cargo, the cause of all the misery, on board with
the rest; while I stood in the growing dawn, looking down at the
motionless figure and at the blood trickling into the sand, trying to
think, to settle what to do, and only conscious of one thing: the
intense wish that I could change places with my victim. Can you
wonder, Adrian, that my brain was reeling? You who know all, all this
means to me, can you wonder that I could not leave this shore--even
though my life depended on it--without seeing her again! Curwen, my
mate, came up to me at last, and I woke up to some sort of reason at
the idea that they, the crew and the ship, must be removed from the
immediate danger. But the orders I gave must have seemed those of a
madman: I told him to sail right away but to double back in time to
have the schooner round again at twelve noon to-day, and then to send
the gig's crew to pick me up o