e kegs. Haste ye, man."

"Tis Big Swankie," whispered Ruby.

"There's nae hurry," objected the other fisherman, who, we need
scarcely inform the reader, was our friend, Davy Spink.

"Nae hurry!" repeated his comrade angrily. "That's aye yer cry. Half
'o oor ventures hae failed because ye object to hurry."

"Hoot, man! that's enough o't," said Spink, in the nettled tone of a
man who has been a good deal worried. Indeed, the tones of both
showed that these few sentences were but the continuation of a
quarrel which had begun elsewhere.

"It's plain to me that we must pairt, freen'," said Swankie in a
dogged manner, as he lifted a keg out of the boat and placed it on
the ground.

"Ay," exclaimed Spink, with something of a sneer, "an" d'ye think
I'll pairt without a diveesion o' the siller tea-pats and things that
ye daurna sell for fear o' bein' fund out?"

"I wonder ye dinna claim half o' the jewels and things as weel,"
retorted Swankie; "ye hae mair right to _them_, seein' ye had a hand
in findin' them."

"_Me_ a hand in findin' them," exclaimed Spink, with sudden
indignation. "Was it _me_ that fand the deed body o' the auld man on
the Bell Rock? Na, na, freend. I hae naething to do wi' deed men's
jewels."

"Have ye no?" retorted the other. "It's strange, then, that ye should
entertain such sma' objections to deed men's siller." "Weel-a-weel,
Swankie, the less we say on thae matters the better. Here, tak' hand
o' the tither keg."

The conversation ceased at this stage abruptly. Evidently each had
touched on the other's weak point, so both tacitly agreed to drop the
subject.

Presently Big Swankie took out a flint and steel, and proceeded to
strike a light. It was some some time before the tinder would catch.
At each stroke of the steel a shower of brilliant sparks lit up his
countenance for an instant, and this momentary glance showed that its
expression was not prepossessing by any means.

Ruby drew Minnie farther into the recess which concealed them, and
awaited the result with some anxiety, for he felt that the amount of
knowledge with which he had become possessed thus unintentionally,
small though it was, was sufficient to justify the smugglers in
regarding him as a dangerous enemy.

He had scarcely drawn himself quite within the shadow of the recess,
when Swankie succeeded in kindling a torch, which filled the cavern
with a lurid light, and revealed its various forms, rendering it, if
possible, mo