up his face and opened his mouth in a prodigious, dry-eyed howl, which would have set Miles laughing, had he not been intent just then upon the approaching boat. He could see her visibly growing larger, as she bounded nearer and nearer over the swell of the water, and each moment he recalled more distinctly in what terms his father had forbidden him have to do with "that Satanish brood of the Billingtons." Miles shuffled one foot uneasily; perhaps he really ought to go into[9] the cabin now and see how his sick friend, Jack Cooke, was faring.

[9]

He turned away and had idled a few paces along the deck, when Francis, who had been suffered wrest out of Lister's hold, called after him: "Ah, Miles daren't let his father find him with me. I knew so."

"It's not so, neither," Miles flung back, and made a great show of stopping by the mainmast, where he stood gazing down the open hatchway which led to those cabins that were in the depth of the hold. "Aren't you coming with me, Francis?" he asked presently.

The other, quite undeceived, came snickering up to him: "Have no fear; I'll take myself off ere your father come. Sure, you're a stout-hearted one, Miles."

"You're a pretty fellow to talk of courage," Miles was goaded into replying, "after the way you howled out but now. You might have known Ned Lister'd do you no hurt."

"No doubt you'd not have been afraid," his tormentor scoffed. "You're not afraid of anybody save your father."

"So are you, if you told the truth of it," Miles took him up. "You'd not have Goodman Billington hear you vaporing so for all the silver crowns in England, and if Goodwife Billington came by and heard you, she'd cuff your ears smartly."

[10]

[10]

Francis's sallow face reddened. "Much she would!" he said angrily. "I'll show you I be no milksop to stand in fear of my father and mother. Maybe now you think I'd not dare to—" he paused, his eyes half-closed, while he tried to concoct some peculiarly wicked sounding project—"to take some of my father's gunpowder and make squibs?" he concluded, with a triumphant look at his companion.

"No, I don't think you dare," Miles answered stolidly.

"Come, then, I'll show you," the other cried, and headed for the companion way that descended beneath the 

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