"Cheerful prospect for me," muttered Alaric. "Never mind, though, Mr. Captain, I'm going to desert, as did the Phil Ryder of whom you seem so fond. I am going to follow his example, too, in taking your first mate with me."
As on the previous night, the lads found an opportunity to talk in low tones; and filled with the idea of inducing Bonny to leave the sloop with him, Alaric strove to convince him of the wickedness of smuggling.
"It is breaking a law of your country," he argued; "and any one who breaks one law will be easily tempted to break another, until there's no saying where he will end."
"If we didn't do it, some other fellows would," replied Bonny. "The chinks are bound to travel, and folks are bound to have cheap dope."
"So you are breaking the law to save some other fellow's conscience?"
"No, of course not. I'm doing it for the wages it pays."
"Which is as much as to say that you would break any law if you were paid enough."
"I never saw such a fellow as you are for putting things in an unpleasant way," retorted the young mate, a little testily. "Of course there are plenty of laws I couldn't be hired to break. I wouldn't steal, for instance, even if I was starving, nor commit a murder for all the money in the world. But I'd like to know what's the harm in running a cargo like ours? A few Chinamen more or less will never be noticed in a big place like the United States. Besides, I think the law that says they sha'n't come in is an unjust one, anyway. We haven't any more right to keep Chinamen out of a free country than we have to keep out Italians or anybody else."
"So you claim to be wiser than the men who make our laws, do you?" asked Alaric.
Without answering this question, Bonny continued, "As for running in a few pounds of dope, we don't rob anybody by doing that."