"Is that you, Fenton?" replied Benzeor in a low voice.
"Ho, it's Benzeor Osburn!" exclaimed the man, peering intently into the face before him as he spoke. "I thought it was strange we didn't find you in your house. We waited an hour as we agreed to, but when you didn't put in an appearance, we thought we'd start back. Where ye been, Benzeor? What's up now?"
"I'd been back home in time if it hadn't been for the storm and an alarm we had back in the bay. I think ye'd better go back with me now, Fenton. I've got some facts that may interest you, and we can't talk them over here."
"Who are these men with you?" inquired Fenton suspiciously.
"Oh, they're all right. I'll vouch for them, every one," replied Benzeor. "You haven't anything to fear from any of my friends. Come up to my house and I'll tell ye all about it."
Fenton hesitated a moment before he replied, and Tom peered intently at the man of whom he had already heard so many tales. He could see his great form, although he could not distinguish the features of his face in the darkness. His deep voice and gruff manner had not tended to allay the lad's fears, and now Benzeor's words and actions filled his heart with a new alarm. Was Benzeor about to cast in his lot with Fenton? His words betrayed the fact of their previous acquaintance, and all the recent suspicious actions of his foster father came back to him. No one in the party had yet spoken, except Benzeor and Fenton, but the recent conversation on board the boat, much of which Tom had overheard, convinced the troubled lad that no very strong protest would be made against any proposal that Benzeor might feel disposed to make.
"I'm rather of the opinion," said Fenton roughly, "that it's about time you went home with me. I don't know who these fellows on board here are, and I don't care. You're the one I'm after, Benzeor, and it seems to me the time's come for you to join us or quit. You've been shilly-shallying long enough."
"Hush! Don't speak so loud!" replied Benzeor anxiously.
Fenton laughed outright at Benzeor's evident alarm, and, turning to his companions in the whaleboat, said, "I think we'd better take the boat along with us. We can land this crew anywhere along the shore, or we can sink 'em in the river, just which you please. It's too much of a storm for us to be hanging around here on the Navesink."
"Fenton," said Benzeor, rising and stepping up to the side of the outlaw, "you'd better do as I say. I've got something to tell ye, and it's worth hearing, too."