“Hum!  Then I suppose you belong to the vessel in the outer harbour; and, though you don’t hate your enemies, you love your friends.  We must contrive the means to coax the ladies to take passage in the slaver.”

“God forbid!”

“God forbid!  Now I think, friend Harris, you set up the backstays of your conscience a little too taught.  Though I cannot, and do not, agree with you in all you have said concerning the ‘Royal Caroline,’ I see no reason to doubt but we shall have but one mind about the other vessel.  I call her a wholesome looking and well proportioned craft, and one that a King might sail in with comfort.”

“I deny it not; still I like her not.”

“Well, I am glad of that; and, since the matter is fairly before us, master Harris, I have a word or two to say concerning that very ship.  I am an old sea-dog, and one not easily blinded in matters of the trade.  Do you not find something, that is not in character for an honest trader, in the manner in which they have laid that vessel at her anchors, without the fort, and the sleepy look she bears, at the same time that any one may see she is not built to catch oysters, or to carry cattle to the islands?”

“As you have said, I think her a wholesome and a tight-built ship.  Of what evil practice, however, do you suspect her?—­perhaps she robs the revenue?”

“Hum!  I am not sure it would be pleasant to smuggle in such a vessel, though your contraband is a merry trade, after all.  She has a pretty battery, as well as one can see from this distance.”

“I dare say her owners are not tired of her yet and would gladly keep her from falling into the hands of the French.”

“Well, well, I may be wrong; but, unless sight is going with my years, all is not as it would be on board that slaver, provided her papers were true, and she had the lawful name to her letters of marque.  What think you, honest Joe, in this matter?”

Wilder turned, impatiently, and found that the landlord had entered the room, with a step so as to have escaped his attention, which had been drawn to his companion with a force that the reader will readily comprehend.  The air of surprise, with which Joram regarded the speaker, was certainly not affected; for the question was repeated, and in still more definite terms, before he saw fit to reply.

“I ask you, honest Joe, if you think the slaver, in the outer harbour of this port, a true man?”

“You come across one, Bob, in your bold way, with such startling questions,” returned the publican, casting his eyes obliquely around him, as if he would fain make sure of the character of the audience to which he spoke, “such stirring opinions, that really I am often non-plushed to know how to get the ideas together, to make a saving answer.”

“It is droll enough, truly, to see the landlord of the ‘Foul Anchor’ dumb-foundered,” returned the old man, with perfect composure in mien and eye.  “I ask you, if you do not suspect something wrong about that slaver?”