'Yes,'
and we'll start away without wasting more time, for the devil is ashore
here at Jamaica--though you don't know what that means--and if he gets
ahead of us, why, then we may whistle for what we are after. Say 'No,'
and I go away again, and I promise you you shall never be troubled again
in this sort. So now speak up plain, young gentleman, and tell us
what is your mind in this business, and whether you will adventure any
farther or not."

If our hero hesitated it was not for long. I cannot say that his courage
did not waver for a moment; but if it did, it was, I say, not for long,
and when he spoke up it was with a voice as steady as could be.

"To be sure I'm man enough to go with you," he said; "and if you mean
me any harm I can look out for myself; and if I can't, why, here is
something can look out for me," and therewith he lifted up the flap of
his coat pocket and showed the butt of a pistol he had fetched with him
when he had set out from his lodging house that evening.

At this the other burst out a-laughing. "Come," says he, "you are indeed
of right mettle, and I like your spirit. All the same, no one in all the
world means you less ill than I, and so, if you have to use that barker,
'twill not be upon us who are your friends, but only upon one who is
more wicked than the devil himself. So come, and let us get away."

Thereupon he and the others, who had not spoken a single word for all
this time, rose from the table, and he having paid the scores of all,
they all went down together to the boat that still lay at the landing
place at the bottom of the garden.

Thus coming to it, our hero could see that it was a large yawl boat
manned with half a score of black men for rowers, and there were two
lanterns in the stern sheets, and three or four iron shovels.

The man who had conducted the conversation with Barnaby True for all
this time, and who was, as has been said, plainly the captain of the
party, stepped immediately down into the boat; our hero followed, and
the others followed after him; and instantly they were seated the boat
was shoved off and the black men began pulling straight out into the
harbor, and so, at some distance away, around under the stern of the
man-of-war.

Not a word was spoken after they had thus left the shore, and presently
they might all have been ghosts, for the silence of the party. Barnaby
True was too full of his own thoughts to talk--and serious enough
thoughts they w