de a nice mess of it now? Do you intend to show them
fellers the way up the cliff?"

"Of course I do."

"Well now, skipper," said the governor, doubling his fist, and shaking
it in the air, "of all the mean things I ever knew you to do, this yere
is the beat. Have you forgot that we want to pay them for tryin' to
cheat us?"

"No, indeed," replied Tom, emphatically. "I am bound to carry out my new
idea, and you have seen enough of me to-night to know that I mean what I
say. We will guide them up the path as far as the chasm, and leave them.
We'll tell them that we had a bridge across there, but it is gone; and
that they'll have to get over the best way they can. In the meantime I
will turn the schooner around, and, when I am ready to sail, I'll send
you word; and I'll wager my share of the thousand dollars that the
robbers, rather than be left alone in the cove, will come with us."

"Humph!" grunted the chief. "You're trustin' a good deal to luck, 'pears
to me. Mebbe that plan will work, an' mebbe it won't. If we lose our
passage-money, we can thank you for it."

"What else can we do?" asked Tom. "It's the only way I know of to avoid
a fight."

"Well, captain," said the burglar, who had thus far done the most of the
talking, and who answered to the name of Sanders, "we've concluded that
we had better go. You can send a man to show us up the path."

"All right," replied Tom. "You have acted very meanly toward us, and you
may have the satisfaction of knowing that you take with you our best
wishes for your speedy capture. Governor, you and Atkins guide them up
the path, and the rest of us stand by to get the vessel under-way."

Sam thought that the skipper, in spite of his assertions to the
contrary, had either given up all hopes of carrying his new idea into
execution, or else, that the disappointment he had experienced in the
failure of his plans against the yacht, had turned his brain. This new
scheme of his for avoiding a fight with the robbers, the governor
regarded as a sure method of throwing away their last chance for
obtaining possession of the passage-money. If the burglars left the
cove, the Crusoe men would never see them again, and the only thing
that would prevent them from so doing, was the difficulty of bridging
the chasm; and that could be easily overcome.

"Good-by to them thousand dollars," growled the governor, as he lighted
his lantern and led the way toward the path. "I'd a heap sooner have a