"Why I did not like the job, it must be confessed," replied the young officer; "but, however, as I had engaged to stand his friend in the business with you, I could not get off, you see, and we landed the next morning in time to be with you. How it was that the fishermen, and hovellers, and smugglers got an inkling of what we were about, I don't know. But it seems they had found out, not only that Hargrave had given information, but that we were going to land early that morning, and they had laid an ambuscade just to the west of Stony Point; so that, before we had got a hundred yards from the boat, they were upon us, and Hargrave was in their hands in a minute. They did not offer to hurt us, though they were five or six to one; but they thrashed him with the stretchers in such a way, that I saw they would kill him outright before they had done; and consequently, getting all the boat's crew together, I made a rush for it, and got him more than half dead out of their hands. They pelted us all the way back to the boat with large stones, which hurt several of the men; but we got off notwithstanding, and, as soon as I could, I wrote a note to you, and going ashore higher up, sent it off by a boy. I hope it reached you." "It certainly did," replied Charles Tyrrell, "but not till I had waited some time. However, by your own account, sir, this Lieutenant Hargrave seems to be so little of a gentleman and so much of a scoundrel, that I wonder you consent to present yourself upon his part." "I do not intend to justify his conduct or to make myself his champion, sir," replied the commander of the revenue cutter, "and therefore we will put all that out of the question, if you please. Having once engaged in the business, I do not choose to go back; and have only farther to say, that, of course, you will act as you please; but that the cause of Lieutenant Hargrave's conduct in not meeting you at the place appointed having been explained, and that cause being that he was incapacitated from doing anything by the ill usage of the mob, it seems to me that a gentleman, a brave man, and a man of honour cannot refuse the appointment he before made." "Well, sir," replied Charles Tyrrell, "on your account, and to make it perfectly evident that fear has nothing to do with the matter, I will meet him. I suppose if you, a respectable officer and an honourable and gentlemanly man, do not refuse to second him, I must not refuse to fight him: but still, sir, I must say, that I look upon him as a scoundrel of the lowest and most ungentlemanly character, for whom the only proper treatment would be a horsewhip." The lieutenant bit his lips. "I must beg leave to decline giving any opinion respecting his character," he answered; "the task I have undertaken I will accomplish, and I have only further to ask you to name the time and place."