"Such a light would lure her on to the rocks!" I cried.

"Wud et, Jasper? Well, some wud blaame Providence for these things. But it must be done."

"And suppose the Preventive men see me?"

"Wot be a couple of sich chaps to you? You could knack their 'eads together like you ded by Micah and Israel."

"And if I refuse?"

He looked at me steadily for a minute with his white eyes gleaming strangely in the firelight; then he said, slowly, "Ef you refuse this time, my sonny, you'll never refuse no more in this world."

All the same I made up my mind that I would escape from Cap'n Jack's gang that very night, and that I would take no part in luring a vessel on to destruction.


CHAPTER X