ikely to pick up with another man."

"If I thort she was agoin' to throw us over, I'd cut her throat as soon
as look at her!" snorts Gabbett savagely.

"Jack ud have a word in that," snuffles the Moocher; "and he's a curious
cove to quarrel with."

"Well, stow yer gaff," grumbled Mr. Gabbett, "and let's have no more
chaff. If we're for bizness, let's come to bizness."

"What are we to do now?" asked the Moocher. "Jack's on the sick list,
and the gal won't stir a'thout him."

"Ay," returned Gabbett, "that's it."

"My dear friends," said the Crow, "my keyind and keristian friends, it
is to be regretted that when natur' gave you such tremendously thick
skulls, she didn't put something inside of 'em. I say that now's the
time. Jack's in the 'orspital; what of that? That don't make it no
better for him, does it? Not a bit of it; and if he drops his knife and
fork, why then, it's my opinion that the gal won't stir a peg. It's on
his account, not ours, that she's been manoovering, ain't it?"

"Well!" says Mr. Gabbett, with the air of one who was but partly
convinced, "I s'pose it is."

"All the more reason of getting it off quick. Another thing, when the
boys know there's fever aboard, you'll see the rumpus there'll be.
They'll be ready enough to join us then. Once get the snapper chest, and
we're right as ninepenn'orth o' hapence."

This conversation, interspersed with oaths and slang as it was, had an
intense interest for Rufus Dawes. Plunged into prison, hurriedly tried,
and by reason of his surroundings ignorant of the death of his
father and his own fortune, he had hitherto--in his agony and sullen
gloom--held aloof from the scoundrels who surrounded him, and repelled
their hideous advances of friendship. He now saw his error. He knew that
the name he had once possessed was blotted out, that any shred of his
old life which had clung to him hitherto, was shrivelled in the fire
that consumed the "Hydaspes". The secret, for the preservation of
which Richard Devine had voluntarily flung away his name, and risked a
terrible and disgraceful death, would be now for ever safe; for Richard
Devine was dead--lost at sea with the crew of the ill-fated vessel in
which, deluded by a skilfully-sent letter from the prison, his mother
believed him to have sailed. Richard Devine was dead, and the secret of
his birth would die with him. Rufus Dawes, his alter ego, alone should
live. Rufus Dawes, the convicted felon, the suspected