"He got me two years' imprisonment," the man said, "which to my mind was a good reason for shooting him when I got the chance; and another thing was he would never leave us alone, but was always on our heels. There are two or three men in prison now that he got sent there, and eight more are waiting their trial. He made war on us, and I have turned the tables on him.
"I heard that you had been at several of the runs, and of course you are in with some of our fellows. How did you get to know about the entrance to this place?"
"I only knew that there was a cave here, that it was used by the smugglers, and that it had an entrance somewhere. The man who told me knew well that I was to be trusted, but it was only because you disappeared among those bushes, and that there were no footprints to show that you had left them, that it appeared to me that the passage might be there, and so I looked about until I found the handle to the trap-door."
"Why didn't you go and call the coast-guard? There was a station not a quarter of a mile away."
"Because I could not have done that without betraying the secret of the cavern. I found the entrance myself, but I should never have done so, if I had not been told about the cave and the secret passage, and I felt that it would be an act of treachery to betray it."
"And you were really fool enough to think that if you captured me single-handed I should walk with you like a lamb to the gallows?"
"I didn't intend to give you a chance of making a fight. I intended to rush straight in and covered you with my gun."
"Well, you have plenty of pluck, young fellow, if you haven't much wisdom; but if you think that after getting in here, I shall let you go out again to bring the constables down on me you are mistaken altogether."