u know?"

"No, I don't," gasped Captain Chinks.

"I'm sure I don't, then. He wouldn't tell me his name. He came down in
the Skylark with Bobtail yesterday."

The gentleman with a doubtful reputation uttered an exceedingly hard and
naughty expletive, and he did so with much emphasis. His face was very
red, and his lips quivered with wrath.

"Have you been talking with any one about this business, Ben Chinks?"
demanded the smuggler, shaking his clinched fist in the face of his
nephew.

"I didn't tell him nothin'; he told me, and he said he took that stuff
off your hands, and was goin' to have the next lot; he said you oughtn't
to land the stuff on that island, and wanted to know how we happened to
let the boat go adrift."

"And you told him?" gasped the captain.

"What was the use of my tellin' on him, when he knowed all about it? O,
he said you and I had both been takin' too much. He was kind o' jokin',
but I stuck to it that we was as sober as he was. I did tell him how
the boat got adrift; but he told me all the rest."

"Ben, you are a fool!"

"I tell you he knowed all about it," whined the nephew.

"You've made a pretty mess of it."

"I didn't do it. He knowed all about it afore, and I s'posed you told
him."

"I told him nothing. I never said a word to him. Don't you know the
man's name?"

"No, I don't. He wouldn't tell me, nor Bob nuther."

"Well, I know who he is," groaned Captain Chinks, pounding the trunk of
the cabin with his fist, and grating his teeth with rage.

"Who is he?"

"He's a custom-house officer."

"Sho! you don't say so!" cried Ben, with horror, for he regarded a
custom-house officer in about the same light that he did a hangman.

"You've told him all about it," added the Captain.

"I didn't tell him nothin'; he knowed it all before.'

"All we can do now is to get out of the way. Where is this man?"

"I don'no; I hain't seen him to-day. There's the Skylark," replied Ben,
pointing to the yacht.

"Is he on board of her?"

"No."

"Are you sure of it?"

"Sartain, I am. I see Bobtail start off in her alone."

"We must get out of the way, but I don't know where to go to," groaned
the captain. "I cal'late you've ruined me, Ben."

"I didn't do it," protested the nephew. "I keep a tellin' on you, he
knowed all about it in the fust on't."

"Get up your fore'n mainsail. We must get out of this as quick as we
can."

"You can't kerry the foresail. It blows like Sam Hill, an