deny ye served me a turn in Hong-Kong, Bucky, and that's why I
was to play fair and above board with ye here. Ye think ye know me, and
who I am, and who I was, but ye don't, Bucky, and if ye did ye'd have
more thought about what yer up to here. Thirkle I'm known as, and as
Thirkle I'll die, and I'm rough in my ways and language because I have
fallen into those ways with my men.

"When I'm a sailor I'm as sailors are, and when I'm a parson I know how
to play it, but ye've never seen me as a fine gentleman. Maybe ye'd like
to know who I was before I was Thirkle and got to be the Devil's Admiral,
as they call me for the want of something better, seeing I have played my
game careful and kept them all in the dark."

"It's naught to me who ye was or are, Thirkle. Ye can't oil me out of it
with all yer fine talk--I'm to do for ye when I'm minded, and yer slick
talk can't save ye."

Buckrow got up and slung a rope over his shoulders and began to make a
sling so that he could balance a sack of gold on each end of it.

"I was an officer in the navy, Bucky," said Thirkle, with a sly grin.

"An officer!" exclaimed Buckrow, halting in his work.

"An officer in the navy with the queen's commission at my back and an
admiral's flag ahead," said Thirkle, pleased with the impression he had
made. "That's what, Bucky. Now ye see I was the lad to finish the job
here in fine style. That's why I can get away with this gold, which you
can't. I can show a wad of five-pound notes and not have Scotland Yard at
my heels, or charter a ship and crew and go about it businesslike, and
take my time at it.

"Nice job ye'll make of it, coming back here for this gold. You've got
the whip hand now, and I'll let it go at that; but when they've got ye on
the gallows, which they will, remember what Thirkle told ye, sitting here
in the thick of it, which ye think ye'll spend for high life in London.
Before ye ever get it to London ye'll find it's another tune ye'll play.
Maybe ye think ye can fill a ship with gold and sail to the dockhead and
lift it out and let it go at that--they'll take the gold and hang you,
that's what.

"No doubt ye think the owners of this gold won't have a word to say when
they find the _Kut Sang_ overdue. Maybe ye think the looting of her was
the easiest part of it; but ye'll find murder is easy, while keeping it
quiet is another tale and another trick. Any man with a knife can go out
and stab a man in the back, but he finds w