The fellow promised caution and amendment; and then he was dismissed, with his reward in gold, and with an injunction to be secret in his return.  So soon as the interview was ended, the Rover and Wilder resumed their walk; the former having made sure that no evesdropper had been at hand to steal into his mysterious connexion with the spy.  The silence was again long, thoughtful, and deep.

“Good ears” (recommenced the Rover) “are nearly as important, in a ship like this, as a stout heart.  The rogues forward must not be permitted to eat of the fruit of knowledge, lest we, who are in the cabins, die.”

“This is a perilous service in which we are embarked,” observed his companion, by a sort of involuntary exposure of his secret thoughts.

The Rover remained silent, making many turns across the deck, before he again opened his lips.  When he spoke, it was in a voice so bland and gentle, that his words sounded more like the admonitory tones of a considerate friend, than like the language of a man who had long been associated with a set of beings so rude and unprincipled as those with whom he was now seen.

“You are still on the threshold of your life, Mr Wilder,” he said, “and it is all before you to choose the path on which you will go.  As yet, you have been present at no violation of what the world calls its laws; nor is it too late to say you never will be.  I may have been selfish in my wish to gain you; but try me; and you will find that self, though often active, cannot, nor does not, long hold its dominion over my mind.  Say but the word, and you are free; it is easy to destroy the little evidence which exists of your having made one of my crew.  The land is not far beyond that streak of fading light; before to-morrow’s sun shall set, your foot may tread it.”

“Then, why not both?  If this irregular life be evil for me, it is the same for you.  Could I hope”—­

“What would you say?” calmly demanded the Rover, after waiting sufficiently long to be sure his companion hesitated to continue.  “Speak freely; your words are for the ears of a friend.”

“Then, as a friend will I unbosom myself.  You say, the land is here in the west.  It would be easy for you and I, men nurtured on the sea, to lower this boat into the water; and, profiting by the darkness, long ere our absence could be known, we should be lost to the eye of any who might seek us.”

“Whither would you steer?”

“To the shores of America, where shelter and peace might be found in a thousand secret places.”

“Would you have a man, who has so long lived a prince among his followers, become a beggar in a land of strangers?”

“But you have gold.  Are we not masters here?  Who is there that might dare even to watch our movements, until we were pleased ourselves to throw off the authority with which we are clothed?  Ere the middle watch was set, all might be done.”