“I guess you’re all right, young man,” said Charlie, softened; “but ... well, we’re not taking passengers.”

The words had a familiar sound.  They were the very ones I had used to Tobias, as he stood with his hand on the gunwale of the Maggie Darling. I rapidly conveyed the coincidence—­and the difference—­to Charlie.  It struck me as odd, I’ll admit, that our second start, in this respect, should be so like the first.  Meanwhile, the young man was answering, or rather pleading, in a boyish way.

“Don’t call me a passenger; I’ll help work the boat.  I’m strong, you’ll see—­not afraid of hard work; and anyway, won’t you help a chap to an adventure?...  I’ll tell the truth.  I heard—­never mind how—­about your trip, and I’m just nutty about buried treasure.  Come, be a sport; I’ve been watching for you all day.  Pretty late starting, aren’t you?...  We can let the old guv’nor know, somehow ... and it won’t kill him to tear his hair for a day or two.  He knows I can take care of myself.”

“Well!” said Charlie, after thinking awhile in his slow way, “we’ll think it over.  You can come along till the morning.  Then I can get a good look at you.  If I don’t like your looks, we’ll still be able to put you off at West End; and if I do—­well—­right-ho!”

“My looks!” exclaimed our young stranger, with a peculiar mellow laugh.

“What’s the joke?” demanded Charlie.

“O!  I only wondered what my looks had to do with it!”

“Well,” laughed Charlie, entering into the spirit of the lad, “you might be pock-marked for all I know in this light—­and I have a peculiar prejudice against pock-marked gentlemen.”

“Unfeeling of you!” retorted the boy.  “Anyhow,” he added, with the same curiously attractive laugh, “I’m not pock-marked.”

“We’ll see at sunrise,” said Charlie.  “Now, boys,” he shouted, “go ahead with the sails.”

Once more there was that rippling of the ropes through the blocks, as our mainsail rose up high against the moon and filled proudly with the steady northeast breeze we had been waiting for.  The water began to talk along our sides, and the immense freshness of the nocturnal sea took us in its huge embrace.  The spray began to fly over our bows as we nosed into the glassy rollers, one of which, on the starboard side, admonished us, by half swallowing us, that only the mighty-limbed immortals might dance with safety on the bar that night, and that it were wise for even 45-foot yawls to hug the land till daylight.  So, reluctantly, we kept the shadowy coast-line for our companion, as we steered for the southwestern end of the island; to our right, companions more of our mood, parallel ridges of savage whiteness, where the surf boiled and gleamed along the coral shoals.

How good it seemed to all of us to be out thus in the freedom of the night and the sea—­not least to the great noble-headed hound sitting up on his haunches, keen and watchful by the steersman’s side.  What a strange waste of a life so short to be sleeping there on the land, when one might be out and away on such business as ours!