'My name is Herman, and I am a poor boatman,' answered the man. 'I've got nothing to do with this job.'
'Here,' said the captain, in the brisk tone of the sea; and he slipped a sovereign into his hand. 'Here, you Goldsmith,' and he also slipped a sovereign into the hand of the excited torch-bearer. 'See here,' said he, 'you pinned this lady down, and you might have killed us both. You might for sixpence, some ten years hence, have gone below and started back at beholding two skeletons lying athwart the entrance corridor. But you did not mean it. You were quick in your turn when reflection came to our service. So take this.'
The man was profound in his bows and brow-knuckling by the faint light of the moon. The conversation had been listened to in silence by the commander and his daughter.
'You've lost your 'at, sir. Shall I fetch it for yer?' said Goldsmith.
'I wouldn't send a wolf into that Devil's Walk,' answered Captain Jackman, with a dull laugh.
'We'll find your 'at, sir,' said the two men, and they plunged away back towards the broken fence and the hole in the earth.
'I wonder,' exclaimed Captain Jackman, coming abreast of Commander Conway, 'if my little hotel will be open at this hour?' and he gazed down at the short square man who trotted between him and his daughter, whose head towered above her father's.
'No need to talk of hotels, sir. Happy to put you up, I'm sure, after your desperate experiences. My house is close by, and, sir,' he said, turning, and extending his hand and clasping that of Captain Jackman, 'I thank you, from the heart of a father, for your courtesy during these long hours to my daughter.'
Captain Jackman shook the old gentleman by the hand and bowed, but made no reply; and they resumed their walk.
All their talk, till they arrived at the commander's cottage, was about this singular adventure under earth. Captain Jackman freely owned this—