ay. Yes, he said he'd come back to her, but
it's a great chance if she ever sees him again, and it's as great a
chance whether that poor young middy's friends ever see him again. I
don't like it, and it's a great pity there's so much trouble in the
world. Look at poor uncle! Why, I don't know what real trouble is. I
might have gone off to sea all in a huff after what uncle said, and then
might have come back as badly off as poor old Double Dot. Well, I'm
very, very sorry for poor Eben's wife, and--there I go again with my
poor Eben. Why should I talk like that about a man who has the
character of being a wrecker as well as a smuggler? He was never
friendly to me and I quite hate him. But whether the King wants men or
whether he doesn't, I just hate Eben so much that if he wanted to escape
back to his wife and asked me to help him I'd do it; and just the same,
if the smugglers had caught that young middy and were going to ill-use
him--kill him perhaps--why, I'd help him too. It's very stupid to be
like that perhaps, sort of Jack o' both sides, but I suppose it's how I
was made, and it isn't my fault. Why, I say, it must be near
dinner-time. How hungry I do feel!"

The coast was clear for Eben Megg's wife, and as soon as the lad was out
of sight she once more made her way towards the cliff.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

Aleck went along the cliff the next day to look out for the boat, fully
intending to turn back if he caught sight of Eben's wife; but as far as
he could make out she was nowhere in that direction. Still he concluded
that she might possibly come to the place she affected, so he determined
to keep on his own side of the depression, lowering himself down to the
shelf in which was the niche or crack, in the belief that he could get a
fair view over the sea from among the scattered masses of rock while
being quite out of the woman's sight if she should come after all.

He swung himself down till he stood upon the shelf, and gave one hasty
look round, to come to the conclusion directly after that if the poor
woman sought his favourite look-out spot he could not have chosen a
worse place, for he would be in full view, no matter where he crouched.

"I know," he said to himself; "I can get over here and lie down in the
crack on the other side."

He began to climb, after making for the hole where the lanthorn and
tinder-box still lay tucked tightly in beyond the reach of the wind; and
the next minute,