"We might get out," said Felix. "Except for these bonds," replied Scott. "Perhaps we can cast them off. It would be a good scheme if we could get loose, recapture the steamer, and then deliver her to the custom-house officers at Gib, if there are any there." "It does not look quite practicable," said Louis, shaking his head. "But it is worth considering," persisted Scott. And they proceeded to consider it. CHAPTER VIII A MORAL CONSPIRACY ON BOARD THE SALIHÉ Louis Belgrave had a constitutional dislike for evil-doers, for he inherited an utter condemnation of all wrong as a part of his being; and he could no more help this feeling than he could help breathing. Like his mother, he was disposed to "love the sinner while he hated the sin." He had just passed through an exciting experience, and he was grateful to Heaven that he and his friends had come out of the conflict unharmed. Still he was not at all satisfied with the situation. His party had been beaten in the conflict with the smugglers, who were lawless reprobates, with whom he could not have the remotest sympathy. He had not the slightest fellow-feeling for those who believed it was quite proper to cheat the government out of the duties levied on goods coming into the country. He was even so old-fashioned as to wonder how men and women who had the reputation of being honest and upright members of society, and sometimes in good standing in the church, could conceal dutiable goods when they had come home from abroad, and give evasive if not lying answers to the questions of custom-house officials. Gray, Diego, Velazquez, and their associates, were violating the laws of Spain. If the duties on the merchandise on board of the Golondrina, as their schooner was called, amounted to a thousand pounds, Louis regarded their operation as precisely the same thing as stealing this amount of money from the Spanish government. He viewed the transaction in exactly the same light as he would have looked upon the deed of a bandit who robbed the passing traveller on the road of the sum named. Louis expressed his views on this subject as a prelude to the consideration of the question which Scott had brought up for discussion. It seemed to him, though he had not reasoned himself into this belief, that he and his companions were to some extent guilty if they permitted these law-breakers, without an attempt to bring them to justice, to go their way with their ill-gotten booty, or, as he put it, to steal the money from the government of Spain.