e was a tall,
lean man with a red handkerchief tied around his neck, with a queue of
red hair hanging down his back, and with copper buckles on his shoes,
so that Barnaby True could not but suspect that he was the very same
man who had given the note to Miss Eliza Bolles at the door of his
lodging-house.

"'Tis all right and straight and as it should be," the other said,
after he had so examined the note. "And now that the paper is read"
(suiting his action to his words), "I'll just burn it for safety's
sake."

And so he did, twisting it up and setting it to the flame of the
candle. "And now," he said, continuing his address, "I'll tell you what
I am here for. I was sent to ask if you're man enough to take your life
in your hands and to go with me in that boat down yonder at the foot of
the garden. Say 'Yes,' and we'll start away without wasting more time,
for the devil is ashore here at Jamaica--though you don't know what
that means--and if he gets ahead of us, why then we may whistle for
what we are after, for all the good 'twill do us. Say 'No,' and I go
away, and I promise you you shall never be troubled more in this sort
of a way. So now speak up plain, young gentleman, and tell us what is
your wish in this business, and whether you will adventure any further
or no."

If our hero hesitated it was not for long, and when he spoke up it was
with a voice as steady as could be.

"To be sure I'm man enough to go with you," says he; "and if you mean
me any harm I can look out for myself; and if I can't, then here is
something can look out for me." And therewith he lifted up the flap of
his pocket and showed the butt of a pistol he had fetched with him when
he had set out from his lodging-house that evening.

At this the other burst out a-laughing for a second time. "Come," says
he; "you are indeed of right mettle, and I like your spirit. All the
same, no one in all the world means you less ill than I, and so, if you
have to use that barker, 'twill not be upon us who are your friends,
but only upon one who is more wicked than the devil himself. So now if
you are prepared and have made up your mind and are determined to see
this affair through to the end, 'tis time for us to be away."
Whereupon, our hero indicating his acquiescence, his interlocutor and
the others (who had not spoken a single word for all this time), rose
together from the table, and the stranger having paid the scores of
all, they went down together