what should you recommend me
to do?"

"It's very queer, father," I said rather dolefully; "but how often one
is obliged to do and say things one way, when it would be so easy and
comfortable to do and say things the other way."

"Yes, Sep," he replied, turning away his face; "it is so all through
life, and one is always finding that there is an easy way out of a
difficulty. What should you do here?"

"What's right, father," I said boldly. "What's right."

He turned upon me in an instant, and grasped my hand with his eyes
flashing, and he gripped me so hard that he hurt me.

As we stood looking in each other's eyes, a strange feeling of misery
came over me.

"What shall you do, father?" I said.

"I don't quite know, Sep," he replied thoughtfully. "I think I shall
wait till Jonas Uggleston gets home, and then tell him all I have seen."

"But it seems so hard on poor Bigley," I said dolefully.

"Ah!" shouted my father. "Stamp on it, Sep; stamp it down, boy. Crush
out that feeling, for it is like a temptation. Duty, honesty, first;
friends later on. It is hard, my boy, but recollect you are an
officer's son, and _officer_ and _gentleman_ are two words that must
always be bracketed together in the king's service. There's that one
word, boy, for you to always keep in your heart, where it must shine
like a jewel--duty--duty. It is the compass, my lad, that points
always--not to the north, but to the end of a just man's life--duty,
Sep, duty."

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.

OLD UGGLESTON IS TOO SHARP FOR THE REVENUE.

We did not go over that afternoon till it was growing late, for my
father had a number of letters to write, and when we did go along the
cliff, and reached the descent to the Gap, to our surprise there lay
Jonas Uggleston's lugger, and we knew he had come home.

"Hah!" ejaculated my father after drawing a long breath. "I shall have
to speak at once. He does not seem to have landed yet."

For the lugger was swinging to the buoy that lay about a hundred yards
out, and we could see figures on board.

There was a brisk breeze blowing down the Gap, and the lugger was end-on
towards us, rising and falling on the swell, while the sea was all
rippled by the wind.

"Look, father," I said, as we went on down, seeing each moment more and
more of the opening to the sea; "there's a boat coming ashore."

"Man-o'-war's," cried my father excitedly. "Look at the way the oars
dip, Sep. Hah, it's a