esented his
behaviour.

I told him in what light I saw his conduct; he walked a little off, I
following to upbraid him; and at last he stopped me with his hand.

"Frank," says he, "you know what we swore; and yet there is no oath
invented would induce me to swallow such expressions, if I did not
regard you with sincere affection. It is impossible you should doubt me
there: I have given proofs. Dutton I had to take, because he knew the
pass, and Grady because Dutton would not move without him; but what call
was there to carry you along? You are a perpetual danger to me with your
cursed Irish tongue. By rights you should now be in irons in the
cruiser. And you quarrel with me like a baby for some trinkets!"

I considered this one of the most unhandsome speeches ever made; and
indeed to this day I can scarce reconcile it to my notion of a gentleman
that was my friend. I retorted upon him with his Scots accent, of which
he had not so much as some, but enough to be very barbarous and
disgusting, as I told him plainly; and the affair would have gone to a
great length, but for an alarming intervention.

We had got some way off upon the sand. The place where we had slept,
with the packets lying undone and the money scattered openly, was now
between us and the pines; and it was out of these the stranger must have
come. There he was at least, a great hulking fellow of the country, with
a broad axe on his shoulder, looking open-mouthed, now at the treasure,
which was just at his feet, and now at our disputation, in which we had
gone far enough to have weapons in our hands. We had no sooner observed
him than he found his legs and made off again among the pines.

This was no scene to put our minds at rest: a couple of armed men in
sea-clothes found quarrelling over a treasure, not many miles from where
a pirate had been captured--here was enough to bring the whole country
about our ears. The quarrel was not even made up; it was blotted from
our minds; and we got our packets together in the twinkling of an eye,
and made off, running with the best will in the world. But the trouble
was, we did not know in what direction, and must continually return upon
our steps. Ballantrae had indeed collected what he could from Dutton;
but it's hard to travel upon hearsay; and the estuary, which spreads
into a vast irregular harbour, turned us off upon every side with a new
stretch of water.

We were near beside ourselves, and already quite s