There were two men on board, a tall one and a shorter one; and they ran their boat right alongside “The Swallow,” as if that were the precise thing they had come to do.

“Burgin,” remarked the tall man, “wot ef we don’t find any thin’, arter all this sailin’ and rowin’ and scullin’?  Most likely he’s kerried it to the house.  In course he has.”

The keenly watchful eyes of Burgin had noted the arrival of that apple-jack at the island; and they had closely followed its fortunes, from first to last.  He had more than half tried, indeed, to work himself in among the crowd, as one of the “sufferers,” but with no manner of success.

The officers of the ship knew every face that had any right to a spoonful, and Burgin’s failed to pass him.  He had not failed, however, to note that his coveted “medicine” was by no means exhausted, and to see Ham stow the demijohn carefully away, at last, under the half-deck of “The Swallow.”  That information had given all the inducement required to get old Peter and his boat across the bay; and the ancient “wrecker” was as anxious about the result as the tramp himself could be.  It was hard to say, now, which of them was the first on board “The Swallow.”

“It ain’t locked!”

“Then the jug ain’t thar.”

“Wall, it is,” exclaimed Burgin triumphantly, as he pulled it out; but his under jaw dropped a little when he felt “how light it lifted.”

“Reckon they helped themselves on thar way hum.”

It was a good deal worse than that; and an angry and disappointed pair were they when the cork and the truth came out.

“Thar’s jest a good smell!”

That was old Peter’s remark; and it sounded as if words failed him to add to it, but Burgin’s wrath exploded in a torrent of bitter abuse of the man or men who had emptied that demijohn.  He gave old Peter a capital chance to turn upon him morosely with,—­

“Look a-yer, my chap, is this ’ere your boat?”

“No:  I didn’t say it was, did I?”

“Is that there your jug?  I don’t know if I keer to sit and hear one of my neighbors—­and he’s a good feller too, he is—­abused all night, jest bekase I’ve been and let an entire stranger make a fool of me.”

“Do you mean me?”

“Well, ef I didn’t I wouldn’t say it.  Don’t you git mad, now.  It won’t pay ye.  Jest let’s take a turn ’round the village.”

“You kin go ef you want ter.  I’ll wait for ye.  ’Pears like I didn’t feel much like doin’ any trampin’ ’round.”

“Stay thar, then.  But mind you don’t try on any runnin’ away with my boat.”

“If I want a boat, old man, there’s plenty here that’s better worth stealin’ than yourn.”

“That’s so.  I didn’t know you’d been makin’ any kalkilation on it.  I won’t be gone any great while.”

He was gone some time, however, whatever may have been his errand.  Old Peter was not the man to be at a loss for one, of some sort, even at that hour of the night; and his present business, perhaps, did not particularly require company.