any questions should be asked, I
can just say what suits us."

"He might ruin us all if he came back," the smuggler growled.

"It ain't likely that he will come back," the poacher said. "I have
heard that they die off like flies in those prisons of yours; and,
besides, I will guarantee if he does, he will never split about this
place. He is a gentleman, and I will get him to swear to me, and you may
be sure he will not break his oath."

"But how about yourself?"

"Well, as he won't come back for some years, I will take my chance of
that. He has got no evidence against me; it would be his word against
mine. He would tell his story and I should tell mine, and mine would be
the most likely. I should say I met him on the hills with his gun, and,
knowing who I was, and what cause I had got to hate Faulkner, he told me
that he had shot him, and asked me to get him on board a smuggler craft
and across the Channel, and that I had done so: and that is all I should
know about it. No, I am not afraid of anything he might say when he
comes back again."

Julian had watched the speakers anxiously during this conversation. He
was wholly ignorant of French, but from the tone and manner of the
speakers, he gathered that the poacher was speaking in his favour. He
had expected no mercy; his life was nothing to these French smugglers;
and he was surprised to find the man, whose life he thought he held in
his hand if released, apparently pleading his cause.

"Look here, young fellow!" the poacher said, turning towards him. "In
the first place, these men are afraid that you may betray the existence
of this place, and their opinion is that the best thing to make us safe
would be to cut your throat and throw you out of the mouth of the cave
into the sea. I told them that you knew of the cave from one of our
friends, and could be trusted to keep the secret; at any rate they
demand, in the first place, that you shall take an oath never to split
about it."

"I will do that willingly enough," Julian said, with a great feeling of
relief.

Joe Markham then dictated a terrible oath, which had been always taken
by all those made acquainted with the existence of the cave, and this
Julian repeated after him. The poacher then told the smugglers what
Julian had sworn to.

"Now, young fellow, I may tell you that we are going to take you over to
France to-night. You may think I shall be asking you to take another
oath, like that, not to say any