rowing, not till they had come pretty close to Barnaby and his
companions. Then a man who sat in the stern ordered them to cease
rowing, and as they lay on their oars he stood up. As they passed by,
Barnaby True could see him very plain, the moonlight shining full upon
him--a large, stout gentleman with a round red face, and clad in a
fine laced coat of red cloth. Amidship of the boat was a box or chest
about the bigness of a middle-sized traveling trunk, but covered all
over with cakes of sand and dirt. In the act of passing, the
gentleman, still standing, pointed at it with an elegant gold-headed
cane which he held in his hand. "Are you come after this, Abraham
Dawling?" says he, and thereat his countenance broke into as evil,
malignant a grin as ever Barnaby True saw in all of his life.

The other did not immediately reply so much as a single word, but sat
as still as any stone. Then, at last, the other boat having gone by,
he suddenly appeared to regain his wits, for he bawled out after it,
"Very well, Jack Malyoe! Very well, Jack Malyoe! you've got ahead of
us this time again, but next time is the third, and then it shall be
our turn, even if William Brand must come back from hell to settle
with you."

This he shouted out as the other boat passed farther and farther
away, but to it my fine gentleman made no reply except to burst out
into a great roaring fit of laughter.

There was another man among the armed men in the stern of the passing
boat--a villainous, lean man with lantern jaws, and the top of his
head as bald as the palm of my hand. As the boat went away into the
night with the tide and the headway the oars had given it, he grinned
so that the moonlight shone white on his big teeth. Then, flourishing
a great big pistol, he said, and Barnaby could hear every word he
spoke, "Do but give me the word, Your Honor, and I'll put another
bullet through the son of a sea cook."

But the gentleman said some words to forbid him, and therewith the
boat was gone away into the night, and presently Barnaby could hear
that the men at the oars had begun rowing again, leaving them lying
there, without a single word being said for a long time.

By and by one of those in Barnaby's boat spoke up. "Where shall you go
now?" he said.

At this the leader of the expedition appeared suddenly to come back to
himself, and to find his voice again. "Go?" he roared out. "Go to the
devil! Go? Go where you choose! Go? Go back again