y, is it yourself? Give us your flipper, small
though it be. I didn't think I'd niver see ye agin, lad."

"No more did I, Grampus; it was very nearly all up with us."

"Ah! my boy," said Bumpus, becoming suddenly very grave, "you've no
notion how near it was all up with _me_. Why, you won't believe it--I
was all but scragged."

"Dear me! what is scragged?" inquired Alice.

"You don't mean for to say you don't know?" exclaimed Bumpus.

"No, indeed, I don't."

"Why, it means bein' hanged. I was so near hanged, just a day or two
back, that I've had an 'orrible pain in my neck ever since at the bare
thought of it! But who's your friend?" said Bumpus, turning to the
boatswain.

"Oh! I forgot him--he's the boatswain of the _Talisman_. Dick Price,
this is my friend, John Bumpus."

"Glad to know you, Dick Price."

"Same to you, and luck, John Bumpus."

The two sea-dogs joined their enormous palms, and shook hands cordially.

After these two had indulged in a little desultory conversation, Will
Corrie, who, meanwhile, consulted with Alice in an undertone, brought
them back to the point that was uppermost in his mind.

"Now," said he, "it comes to this,--we must not let Gascoyne be hanged."

"Why, Corrie," cried Bumpus, in surprise, "that's the very thing I was
a-thinkin' of w'en I comed up here and found Miss Alice under the tree."

"I am glad to hear that, Jo; it's what has been on my own mind all the
morning. But Dick Price here is not convinced that he deserves to
escape. Now; you tell him all _you_ know about Gascoyne, and I'll tell
him all _I_ know, and if he don't believe _us_, Alice and Poopy will
tell him all _they_ know, and if that won't do, you and I will take him
up by the legs and pitch him into the sea!"

"That bein' how the case stands--fire away," said Dick Price with a
grin, sitting down on the grass and busily filling his pipe.

Dick was not so hard to be convinced as Corrie had feared. The glowing
eulogiums of Bumpus, and the earnest pleadings of Alice, won him over
very soon. He finally agreed to become one of the conspirators.

"But how is the thing to be done?" asked Corrie in some perplexity.

"Ah! that's the pint," observed Dick, looking profoundly wise.

"Nothin' easier," said Bumpus, whose pipe was by this time keeping pace
with that of his new friend. "The case is as clear as mud. Here's how
it is. Gascoyne is in limbo; well, we are out of limbo. Good. Then,
all we