oung
gentleman, and tell us what is your mind in this business, and whether
you will adventure any farther or not."

If our hero hesitated it was not for long. I cannot say that his
courage did not waver for a moment; but if it did, it was, I say, not
for long, and when he spoke up it was with a voice as steady as could
be.

"To be sure I'm man enough to go with you," he said; "and if you mean
me any harm I can look out for myself; and if I can't, why, here is
something can look out for me," and therewith he lifted up the flap of
his coat pocket and showed the butt of a pistol he had fetched with
him when he had set out from his lodging house that evening.

At this the other burst out a-laughing. "Come," says he, "you are
indeed of right mettle, and I like your spirit. All the same, no one
in all the world means you less ill than I, and so, if you have to use
that barker, 'twill not be upon us who are your friends, but only upon
one who is more wicked than the devil himself. So come, and let us get
away."

Thereupon he and the others, who had not spoken a single word for all
this time, rose from the table, and he having paid the scores of all,
they all went down together to the boat that still lay at the landing
place at the bottom of the garden.

Thus coming to it, our hero could see that it was a large yawl boat
manned with half a score of black men for rowers, and there were two
lanterns in the stern sheets, and three or four iron shovels.

The man who had conducted the conversation with Barnaby True for all
this time, and who was, as has been said, plainly the captain of the
party, stepped immediately down into the boat; our hero followed, and
the others followed after him; and instantly they were seated the boat
was shoved off and the black men began pulling straight out into the
harbor, and so, at some distance away, around under the stern of the
man-of-war.

Not a word was spoken after they had thus left the shore, and
presently they might all have been ghosts, for the silence of the
party. Barnaby True was too full of his own thoughts to talk--and
serious enough thoughts they were by this time, with crimps to trepan
a man at every turn, and press gangs to carry a man off so that he
might never be heard of again. As for the others, they did not seem to
choose to say anything now that they had him fairly embarked upon
their enterprise.

And so the crew pulled on in perfect silence for the best part of a