ill be wuth while.'

'I'll pay you out. See if I don't!' repeated Alick, sidling hurriedly
off, with a parting shot in the shape of the coward's favourite threat.

'Oh, come!'--Geoff was at his heels,--'the old chap is very game. You
must allow, too, that he was in the right, Alick, and we were wrong.'

Clear-sighted Geoff never hesitated to render justice to others. But
Alick was different. Baffled and furious, he slouched away, hatching
secret revenge upon the old man who had so determinedly baulked his
will.

CHAPTER V

BREAKERS AHEAD

Ned Dempster was certainly the sharpest of all the boys in Northbourne.
Naturally sharp, that is to say, for he, in common with Alick Carnegy,
was incorrigibly idle, and Ned's talent of ability was therefore
allowed to rust from disuse.

The Carnegy boys and Ned were in the same class at Sunday school, a
class taught by Theo. The rest of the boys comprising it being dull
and lumpish, it was only to be expected that a sharp-witted lad like
Ned stood out brilliantly from his neighbours, attracting by his
intelligence the attention of his teacher as well as her young brothers.

Ned Dempster was an orphan who had been brought up by his grandmother,
Goody Dempster, the oldest inhabitant of the little fishing-village, an
aged woman whose skin was baked brown by the sun and the salt
sea-breezes until she had more the appearance of a New Zealander than
an Englishwoman. Pitying the boy, as well as being considerably
interested in his intelligent answers in class, Theo began to have him
a good deal at the Bunk. She found many little offices there for him,
such as to look after and keep tidy 'The Theodora,' the family boat,
and to help in the obstinately unproductive garden. In this way the
acquaintance between the three boys became a week-day as well as a
Sunday one. Alick and Ned, in particular, rapidly found themselves to
be kindred spirits. In each was ingrained a powerful love of
adventure. Alick, a great reader, who had devoured already his
father's little library, which was made up for the most part of books
on seafaring subjects, found in Ned Dempster a listener who hungered
for as much of that exciting fare as Alick could manage to retail
second-hand.

For a long time the darling topic that absorbed their individual
attention was pirates. The boys were never weary of rehearsing all the
thrilling scenes of pirate-life which Alick had either read or heard
of.