"Old acquaintance!"
"Never saw you with my eyes—shiver me! But never mind, you look like the breed—a ready hand and a light heel, ha! All's right—tap your keg!"
No sooner said than done. The keg was broached, and a good brown basin of double hollands was brimming at the lips of the Warlock Fisher. The stranger did himself a similar service, and they grew friendly. The fisher could not avoid placing his hand before his eyes once or twice, as if wishful to avoid the keen gaze of the stranger, who still plied the fire with fuel and his host with hollands. Reserve was at length annihilated, and the fisher jocularly said—
"Well, and so we're old acquaintance, ha?"
"Ay," said the young man, with another searching glance. "I was in doubt at first, but now I'm certain."
"And what's to be done?" said the Fisher.
"An hour after midnight you must put me on board ——-'s boat, she'll be abroad. They'll run a light to the masthead, for which you'll steer. You're a good hand at the helm in a dark night and a rough sea," was the reply.
"How, if I will not?"
"Then—your life or mine!"
They sprang to their feet simultaneously, and an immediate encounter seemed inevitable.