“And you know what it is to be misunderstood, misjudged, don’t you?”

“Well, now I come to think on it, I believe I have had that misfortune—­’specially w’en I’ve ordered the powder-monkeys to make less noise; for them younkers never do seem to understand me.  As for misjudgin’, I’ve often an’ over again heard ’em say I was the crossest feller they ever did meet with; but they never was more out in their reckoning.”

Corrie did not smile; he did not betray the smallest symptom of power either to appreciate or to indulge in jocularity at that moment.  But feeling that it was useless to appeal to the former experience of the boatswain, he changed his plan of attack.

“Dick Price,” said he, “it’s a hard case for an innocent man to be hanged.”

“So it is, boy,—­oncommon hard.  I once know’d a poor feller as was hanged for murderin’ his old grandmother.  It was afterwards found out that he never done the deed; but he was the most incorrigible thief and poacher in the whole place; so it wasn’t such a mistake, after all.”

“Dick Price,” said Corrie, gravely, at the same time laying his hand impressively on his companion’s arm, “I’m a tremendous joker—­awful fond o’ fun and skylarkin’.”

“’Pon my word, lad, if you hadn’t said so yourself, I’d scarce have believed it.  You don’t look like it just now, by no manner o’ means.”

“But I am, though,” continued Corrie; “and I tell you that in order to show you that I am very, very much in earnest at this moment, and that you must give your mind to what I’ve got to say.”

The boatswain was impressed by the fervor of the boy.  He looked at him in surprise for a few seconds, then nodded his head, and said, “Fire away!”

“You know that Gascoyne is in prison!” said Corrie.

“In course I does.  That’s one rascally pirate less on the seas, anyhow.”

“He is not so bad as you think, Dick.”

“Whew!” whistled the boatswain.  “You’re a friend of his, are ye?”

“No, not a friend; but neither am I an enemy.  You know he saved my life, and the lives of two of my friends, and of your own captain, too.”

“Well, there’s no denying that; but he must have been the means of takin’ away more lives than what he has saved.”

“No, he hasn’t,” cried Corrie, eagerly.  “That’s it, that’s just the point; he has saved more than ever he took away, and he’s sorry for what he has done; yet they’re going to hang him.  Now, I say, that’s sinful—­it’s not just.  It shan’t be done, if I can prevent it; and you must help me to get him out of this scrape,—­you must, indeed, Dick Price.”

The boatswain was quite taken aback.  He opened his eyes wide with surprise, and putting his head to one side, gazed earnestly and long at the boy, as if he had been a rare old painting.

Before he could reply, the furious barking of a dog attracted Corrie’s attention.  He knew it to be the voice of Toozle.  Being well acquainted with the locality of Alice’s tree, he at once concluded that she was there; and knowing that she would certainly side with him, and that the side she took must necessarily be the winning side, he resolved to bring Dick Price within the fascination of her influence.