But what most attracted our hero’s attention was a man sitting with his back to him, his figure clad in a rough pea-jacket, and with a red handkerchief tied around his throat.  His feet were stretched under the table out before him, and he was smoking a pipe of tobacco with all the ease and comfort imaginable.  As Barnaby came in he turned round, and, to the profound astonishment of our hero, presented to him in the light of the lantern, the dawn shining pretty strong through the skylight, the face of that very man who had conducted the mysterious expedition that night across Kingston Harbor to the Cobra River.

VII

This man looked steadily at Barnaby True for above half a minute and then burst out a-laughing.  And, indeed, Barnaby, standing there with the bandage about his head, must have looked a very droll picture of that astonishment he felt so profoundly at finding who was this pirate into whose hands he had fallen.  “Well,” says the other, “and so you be up at last, and no great harm done, I’ll be bound.  And how does your head feel by now, my young master?”

To this Barnaby made no reply, but, what with wonder and the dizziness of his head, seated himself at the table over against his interlocutor, who pushed a bottle of rum towards him, together with a glass from the hanging rack.  He watched Barnaby fill his glass, and so soon as he had done so began immediately by saying:  “I do suppose you think you were treated mightily ill to be so handled last night.  Well, so you were treated ill enough, though who hit you that crack upon the head I know no more than a child unborn.  Well, I am sorry for the way you were handled, but there is this much to say, and of that you may feel well assured, that nothing was meant to you but kindness, and before you are through with us all you will believe that without my having to tell you so.”

Here he helped himself to a taste of grog, and sucking in his lips went on again with what he had to say.  “Do you remember,” says he, “that expedition of ours in Kingston Harbor, and how we were all of us balked that night?” then, without waiting for Barnaby’s reply:  “And do you remember what I said to that villain Jack Malyoe that night as his boat went by us?  I says to him, ‘Jack Malyoe,’ says I, ’you’ve got the better of us once again, but next time it will be our turn, even if William Brand himself has to come back from the grave to settle with you.’”

“I remember something of the sort,” said Barnaby, “but I profess I am all in the dark as to what you are driving at.”

At this the other burst out in a great fit of laughing.  “Very well, then,” said he, “this night’s work is only the ending of what was so ill begun there.  Look yonder”—­pointing to a corner of the cabin—­“and then maybe you will be in the dark no longer.”  Barnaby turned his head and there beheld in the corner of the saloon those very two travelling-cases that Sir John Malyoe had been so particular to keep in his cabin and under his own eyes through all the voyage from Jamaica.