't Mr Gordon, I know," said Esau. "I ain't the slipping away
sort. Those chaps got hold of me again, and I don't like going away
like this without setting the police at them."

"You are best away, my lad," said Gunson.

"I don't know so much about that," cried Esau. "They've got all my
money, and my knife and coat, and that new pipe."

"What new pipe?" I said sharply. "You don't smoke."

"Nobody said I did," replied Esau, gruffly. "Fellow isn't obliged to
smoke because he's got a pipe in his pocket, is he?"

"No, but you had no pipe in your pockets this morning, because you
turned them all out before me."

"Well, then, I'd got one since if you must know."

"Why, you did not go away to buy a pipe, did you?" I said.

"Why, there wouldn't ha' been any harm in it if I had, would there?" he
said surlily, as he held one hand over the side to let the water foam
through his fingers.

"Then you gave us all this trouble and anxiety," I cried angrily, "and
have made us perhaps ruin our passage, because you wanted to learn to
smoke."

"I didn't know it was going to give all this trouble," he said, in a
grumbling tone.

"But you see it has."

"Well, I've got it worse than you have, haven't I? Lost everything I've
got except what's in my chest."

"And it begins to look as if you've lost that too, my lad," said Gunson
bitterly. "You'd better have waited a bit before you began to learn to
smoke. There goes your chest and your passage money."

"Yes, and ours," I said, as Gunson pointed to where the schooner's sails
were once more full, and she was gliding away. "Is it any use to shout
and hail them?"

"Stretch your breathing tackle a bit, my lad," said the master. "Do you
good p'r'aps."

"But wouldn't they hear us?"

"No; and if they did they wouldn't stop," said the master; and we all
sat silent and gloomy, till the injury Esau had inflicted upon us
through that pipe came uppermost again.

"Serves you well right, Esau," I said to him in a low voice. "You
deserve to lose your things for sneaking off like that to buy a pipe.
You--pish--want to learn to smoke!"

I said this with so much contempt in my tones that my words seemed to
sting him.

"Didn't want to learn to smoke," he grumbled.

"Yes, you did. Don't make worse of it by telling a lie."

"Who's telling a lie?" he cried aloud. "Tell you I wasn't going to
smoke it myself."

"Then why did you go for it?"

"Never you mind," he said sulki