ing briskly from the
town.

'Captain Tom is coming.'

'That's Tapena Tom, is it?' said the captain, pausing in his music. 'I
don't seem to place the brute.'

'We'd better cut,' said the clerk. ''E's no good.'

'Well,' said the musician deliberately, 'one can't most generally always
tell. I'll try it on, I guess. Music has charms to soothe the savage
Tapena, boys. We might strike it rich; it might amount to iced punch in
the cabin.'

'Hiced punch? O my!' said the clerk. 'Give him something 'ot, captain.
"Way down the Swannee River"; try that.'

'No, sir! Looks Scotch,' said the captain; and he struck, for his life,
into 'Auld Lang Syne.'

Captain Tom continued to approach with the same business-like alacrity;
no change was to be perceived in his bearded face as he came swinging up
the plank: he did not even turn his eyes on the performer.

'We twa hae paidled in the burn
Frae morning tide till dine,'

went the song.

Captain Tom had a parcel under his arm, which he laid on the house roof,
and then turning suddenly to the strangers: 'Here, you!' he bellowed,
'be off out of that!'

The clerk and Herrick stood not on the order of their going, but fled
incontinently by the plank. The performer, on the other hand, flung down
the instrument and rose to his full height slowly.

'What's that you say?' he said. 'I've half a mind to give you a lesson
in civility.'

'You set up any more of your gab to me,' returned the Scotsman, 'and
I'll show ye the wrong side of a jyle. I've heard tell of the three
of ye. Ye're not long for here, I can tell ye that. The Government has
their eyes upon ye. They make short work of damned beachcombers, I'll
say that for the French.'

'You wait till I catch you off your ship!' cried the captain: and
then, turning to the crew, 'Good-bye, you fellows!' he said. 'You're
gentlemen, anyway! The worst nigger among you would look better upon a
quarter-deck than that filthy Scotchman.'

Captain Tom scorned to reply; he watched with a hard smile the departure
of his guests; and as soon as the last foot was off the plank; turned to
the hands to work cargo.

The beachcombers beat their inglorious retreat along the shore; Herrick
first, his face dark with blood, his knees trembling under him with
the hysteria of rage. Presently, under the same purao where they had
shivered the night before, he cast himself down, and groaned aloud, and
ground his face into the sand.

'Don't speak