l said, Captain!' replied Glossin,
ironically. 'But, Captain, bullying won't do; you'll hardly get out of
this country without accounting for a little accident that happened at
Warroch Point a few years ago.'

Hatteraick's looks grew black as midnight.

'For my part,' continued Glossin, 'I have no particular wish to be hard
upon an old acquaintance; but I must do my duty. I shall send you off to
Edinburgh in a post-chaise and four this very day.'

'Poz donner! you would not do that?' said Hatteraick, in a lower and more
humbled tone; 'why, you had the matter of half a cargo in bills on
Vanbeest and Vanbruggen.'

'It is so long since, Captain Hatteraick,' answered Glossin,
superciliously, 'that I really forget how I was recompensed for my
trouble.'

'Your trouble? your silence, you mean.'

'It was an affair in the course of business,' said Glossin, 'and I have
retired from business for some time.'

'Ay, but I have a notion that I could make you go steady about and try
the old course again,' answered Dirk Hatteraick. 'Why, man, hold me der
deyvil, but I meant to visit you and tell you something that concerns
you.'

'Of the boy?' said Glossin, eagerly.

'Yaw, Mynheer,' replied the Captain, coolly.

'He does not live, does he?'

'As lifelich as you or I,' said Hatteraick.

'Good God! But in India?' exclaimed Glossin.

'No, tousand deyvils, here! on this dirty coast of yours,' rejoined the
prisoner.

'But, Hatteraick, this,--that is, if it be true, which I do not
believe,--this will ruin us both, for he cannot but remember your neat
job; and for me, it will be productive of the worst consequences! It will
ruin us both, I tell you.'

'I tell you,' said the seaman, 'it will ruin none but you; for I am done
up already, and if I must strap for it, all shall out.'

'Zounds,' said the Justice impatiently, 'what brought you back to this
coast like a madman?'

'Why, all the gelt was gone, and the house was shaking, and I thought the
job was clayed over and forgotten,' answered the worthy skipper.

'Stay; what can be done?' said Glossin, anxiously. 'I dare not discharge
you; but might you not be rescued in the way? Ay sure! a word to
Lieutenant Brown, and I would send the people with you by the
coast-road.'

'No, no! that won't do. Brown's dead, shot, laid in the locker, man; the
devil has the picking of him.

'Dead? shot? At Woodbourne, I suppose?' replied Glossin.

'Yaw, Mynheer.'

Glossin paused; the