uppose we come in sight of Bombay, who
will tell him? Nobody. If he asks, we will say it is some other place:
how can he tell? We will run past Bombay until we are within sight of
Cutch: then truly I will do the rest."

The Maratha did not reply. The momentary silence was broken by Fuzl Khan
again.

"See! Put the one thing in the balance against the other: how does it
turn? On the one side the twenty rupees--a pitiful sum--promised by the
sahib: and who knows he will keep his promise? On the other, a tenth
share for each of you in the grab and whatsoever prey falls to it."

"Then the Babu is to have a share? Of a truth he is a small man, a hare
in spirit; does he merit an equal share with us? We are elephants to
him."

"No. He will have no share. He will go overboard."

"Why, then, what of the tenth share?"

"It will be mine. I shall be your leader and take two."

Desmond had heard enough. The Gujarati was showing himself in his true
colors. His greed was roused, and the chance of setting up as a pirate on
his own account, and making himself a copy of the man whose prisoner he
had been, had prompted this pretty little scheme. Desmond crept
noiselessly away and returned to his quarters. Not to sleep; he spent the
remainder of his watch below in thinking out his position--in trying to
devise some means of meeting this new and unexpected difficulty. He had
not heard what Fuzl Khan proposed ultimately to do with him. He might
share the Babu's fate: at the best it would appear that he had shaken off
one captivity to fall into the toils of another.

He had heard grim tales of the pirates of the Cambay Gulf; they were not
likely to prove more pleasant masters than the Marathas farther south,
even if they did not prefer to put him summarily out of the way. His
presence among them might prove irksome, and what would the death of a
single English youth matter? He was out of reach of all of his friends;
on the Good Intent none but Bulger and the New Englander had any real
kindness for him, and if Bulger were to mention at any port that a young
English lad was in captivity with the Pirate, what could be done? Should
the projected expedition against Gheria prove successful, and he not be
found among the European prisoners, it would be assumed that he was no
longer living; and even if the news of his escape became known, it was
absurd to suppose that all India would be searched for him.

The outlook, from any point of