“I hope that money may do some worthy fellow good yet.  It’s Mexican gold, and that’s inemy’s gold, and might be condemned by law, I do suppose.  Stephen had a hankerin’ a’ter it, but he did not get it.  It come easy enough to the next man that tried.  That Spike ’s a willian, and the gold was too good for him.  He has no conscience at all to think of a gal of nineteen!  And one fit for his betters, in the bargain.  The time has been when Stephen Spike might have pretended to Rose Budd’s equal.  That much I’ll ever maintain, but that time’s gone; and, what is more, it will never come again.  I should like Mulford better if he had a little less conscience.  Conscience may do for Uncle Sam’s ships, but it is sometimes in the way aboard a trading craft.  What can a fellow do with a conscience when dollars is to be smuggled off, or tobacco smuggled ashore?  I do suppose I’ve about as much conscience as it is useful to have, and I’ve got ashore in my day twenty thousand dollars’ worth of stuff, of one sort or another, if I’ve got ashore the valie of ten dollars.  But Spike carries on business on too large a scale, and many’s the time I’ve told him so.  I could have forgiven him anything but this attempt on Rose Budd; and he’s altogether too old for that, to say nothing of other people’s rights.  He’s an up-and-down willian, and a body can make no more, nor any less of him.  That soup must be near done, and I’ll hoist the signal for grub.”

This signal was a blue-peter of which one had been brought ashore to signal the brig; and with which Jack now signalled the schooner.  If the reader will turn his eyes toward the last named vessel, he will find the guests whom Tier expected to surround his table.  Rose, her aunt, and Biddy were all seated, under an awning made by a sail, on the deck of the schooner, which now floated so buoyantly as to show that she had materially lightened since last seen.  Such indeed was the fact, and he who had been the instrument of producing this change, appeared on deck in the person of Mulford, as soon as he was told that the blue-peter of Jack Tier was flying.

The boat of the light-house, that in which Spike had landed in quest of Rose, was lying alongside of the schooner, and sufficiently explained the manner in which the mate had left the brig.  This boat, in fact, had been fastened astern, in the hurry of getting from under the sloop-of-war’s fire, and Mulford had taken the opportunity of the consternation and frantic efforts produced by the explosion of the last shell thrown, to descend from his station on the coach-house into this boat, to cut the painter, and to let the Swash glide away from him.  This the vessel had done with great rapidity, leaving him unseen under the cover of her stern.  As soon as in the boat, the mate had seized an oar, and sculled to an islet that was within fifty yards, concealing the boat behind a low hummock that formed a tiny bay.  All this was done so rapidly, that united to the confusion