dodging about a long while. Worse still, my schooner may be
taken, condemned, and my crew and I clapped in irons in some
Spanish-American prison, to get free nobody knows when."

"Oh!" groaned Fitz excitedly.

"I am being very plain to you, my lad, now that the cat's out of the
bag, and there's nothing to hide. I am playing a dangerous game, one
full of risk. It began when I was informed upon by some cowardly,
dirty-minded scoundrel, one who no doubt had been taking my pay till he
thought he could get no more, and then he split upon me, with the result
that your captain was put upon the scent of my enterprise, to play dog
and run me down in the dark. But you see I had one eye open, and got
away. Now I suppose the telegraph will have been at work, and the folks
over yonder will be waiting for me there, so that I shall have to hang
about and wait my chance of communicating with my friends. So there,
you see, you will have to wait one, two, perhaps three months, before,
however good my will, I can do anything for you."

"But by that time," cried Fitz, "I shall be disgraced."

"Bah! Nonsense, my lad! There can be no disgrace for one who boarded a
vessel along with his crew, and had the bad luck to be struck down.
Now, my boy, you know I'm a father. Let me speak like a father to you.
Your real trouble is this, and I say honestly I am sorry, and so's Poole
there, not so much for you as for your poor relatives. There, it's best
I should speak quite plainly. It's as well to know the worst that can
have happened, and then it generally proves to have been not so bad; and
that's what clever folks call philosophy. The real trouble in your case
is this, that by this time your poor relatives will probably know that
your number has been wiped off your mess; in short, you have been
reported--dead."

"What!" cried the boy, in a tone full of anguish. "They will have sent
word home that I am dead?"

"I am afraid so," said the skipper. "It's very sad, but you have got to
bear it like a man."

"Sad!" cried the boy passionately. "It's horrible! It will break her
heart!"

"You mean your mother's," said the skipper gravely, and he laid his hand
kindly on the boy's shoulder. "But it's not so bad as you think, my
lad. I have had a little experience of women in my time--wives and
mothers, boy--and there's a little something that generally comes to
them in cases like this and whispers in their poor ears. That little
so