“Don’t lie to me,” he said.  “Your mug is too ugly to forget easy!  You are the big, cussing pirate the savages gave the name of skipper to, along on that devilish coast to the south where we lost the Durham Castle.  You are a sly fellow, and a daring one; but it will not help you a mite to sit there and talk about your happy home in Harbor Grace to me.”

“The skipper!” exclaimed Dick Lynch, in genuine anger and dismay.  “Saints presarve ye, I’d as soon be took for the divil himself as for Black Dennis Nolan o’ Chance Along.  No, sir, I bain’t that tyrant, though some folks do say as how I bes about his size and color.”

“Is that so?” enquired Mr. Darling, quietly.  “You are not the skipper of Chance Along, but you look like him.  Is that the way of it?”

“Aye, that bes the way of it, sir.”

“You know this skipper fellow, then?”

“Aye, sir, to me cost—­may the divil fly away wid him!  Hasn’t he bullied me an’ cheated me all me life long, the divil-possessed tyrant!  Bain’t he the livin’ curse o’ Chance Along?”

“Chance Along, is it?” murmured Mr. Darling.  “Now where the devil is Chance Along?”

Then, raising his voice, “You don’t seem to love this skipper fellow—­this Black Dennis Nolan.  What is the trouble between the pair of you?”

Dick finished his rum, eyed the other suspiciously, then stared sullenly at the fire.

Mr. Darling smiled grimly and shouted for Jake.

“My friend will have more of the same,” he said, pointing to Lynch’s empty glass.  “But make it hot, Jake.  This is no kind of weather for cold liquor.  Better bring the bottle right along, and the kettle and sugar too.”

Twenty minutes later Dick Lynch began to talk again, his belated caution entirely vaporized and blown out of his somewhat inferior brain by the fumes of hot rum, lemon and sugar.

“I knows ye, sir,” he said.  “Sure, didn’t I know ye the minute I clapped me two eyes on ye.  Cap’n o’ that big ship that come ashore in Nolan’s Cove, t’ree miles to the south o’ Chance Along, ye be.  An’ a smart landin’ ye made, too, boat by boat, wid every mother’s son o’ ye wid a gun an’ a sword in his two hands.  Sure, sir, ye wasn’t lookin’ for to meet wid no man-killin’ wrakers on that coast, was ye?  Saints forgive ye, sir, the babe unborn would be safe to come ashore in Chance Along!”

John Darling smiled.  “You are a sharp lad,” he said.  “I saw it in your eyes that you knew me the moment I entered the room.  I don’t see how I ever came to mistake a smart, well-spoken lad like you for that fellow you call the skipper.  Well, I am sorry for it.  But you have made one mistake, my lad.  I wasn’t the captain of that ship.  I was only one of the mates.”

“Well, sir,” returned Lynch, cordially, “I bain’t sharp enough for to see much difference atween a cap’n an’ a mate.  Ye looks like a cap’n to me, anyhow.”