“So, captain, this is you?  You’ve been a stranger on these coasts for some years.”

“Stranger!” replied the other.  “Strange enough, I should think, for hold me der teyvil, if I have ever been here before.”

Glossin took a pair of pistols, and loaded them.

“You may retire,” said he to his clerk, “and carry the people with you, but wait within call.”  Then:  “You are Dirk Hatteraick, are you not?”

“Tousand teyvils!  And if you know that, why ask me?”

“Captain, bullying won’t do.  You’ll hardly get out of this country without accounting for a little accident at Warroch Point a few years ago.”

Hatteraick’s looks grew black as midnight.

“For my part,” continued Glossin.  “I have no wish to be hard on an old acquaintance, but I must send you off to Edinburgh this very day.”

“Poz donner! you would not do that?” said the prisoner.  “Why, you had the matter of half a cargo in bills on Vanbeest and Vanbruggen!”

“It was an affair in the way of business,” said Glossin, “and I have retired from business for some time.”

“Ay, but I have a notion I could make you go steady about, and try the old course again,” said Dirk Hatteraick.  “I had something to tell you.”

“Of the boy?” said Glossin eagerly.

“Yaw, mynheer,” replied the captain coolly.

“He does not live, does he?”

“As lifelich as you or me,” said Hatteraick.

“Good God!  But in India?” exclaimed Glossin.

“No, tousand teyvils, here—­on this dirty coast of yours!” rejoined the prisoner.

“But, Hatteraick, this—­that is, if it be true, will ruin us both, for he cannot but remember.”

“I tell you,” said the seaman, “it will ruin none but you, for I am done up already, and if I must strap for it, all shall out.”

Glossin paused—­the sweat broke upon his brow; while the hard-featured miscreant sat opposite coolly rolling his tobacco in his cheek.

“It would be ruin,” said Glossin to himself, “absolute ruin, if the heir should reappear—­and then what might be the consequences of conniving with these men?”

“Hark you, Hatteraick, I can’t set you at liberty, but I can put you where you can set yourself at liberty.  I always like to assist an old friend.”

So he gave him a file.

“There’s a friend for you, and you know the way to the sea, and you must remain snug at the point of Warroch till I see you.”

“The point of Warroch?” Hatteraick’s countenance fell.  “What—­in the cave?  I would rather it was anywhere else.  They say he walks.  But donner and blitzen!  I never shunned him alive, and I won’t shun him dead!”