Now it flashed across Breeze where he had seen the face before. It was while on his trip in the _Curlew_, and this young man had been one of the crew of the Rockhaven schooner--the one who had shaken his fist and threatened him for laughing at their ridiculous mishap. “I laid up another grudge agin you yesterday,” continued Hank Hoffer. “When I went to Captain Coffin and asked for a chance on the _Fish-hawk_, he said he had just engaged you and your mate, and didn’t want any more hands. So I had to ship on this old packet. When I found your mate hanging around alone last evening, I saw a chance to fix him, and thought I’d get even with you that way. Then you had to come along, like the greenhorn that you are, and walk right into the trap too. I tell you what, young feller, you won’t never gain nothing by running afoul the hawse of Hank Hoffer! So put that in your pipe and smoke it, and see that you remember it too.” It was all plain enough to Breeze now, and he turned away angry and heart-sick, to think that his own carelessness should have led him into such a predicament. He thought he could not feel any worse than he did, but a minute later he found himself confronted by a new trouble, beside which the other became insignificant. As he re-entered the cabin he found the skipper awake, and at once began to charge him with having kidnapped them, and to threaten that if they were not set aboard the first homeward-bound vessel they met, he would have him arrested the moment they again reached Gloucester. The skipper listened to all this in amazement, and when Breeze had ended said, “You’d better be careful in your choice of words, my young friend, or you may get yourself into trouble. I never kidnapped you or anybody else in my life, and I don’t know what you mean. You came aboard this vessel of your own free-will just as she was about to start. Your friend on deck there told me that you wanted to ship with us for the pleasure of sailing in his company. I took his word for it instead of talking with you, because you were too drunk to--” “I drunk!” interrupted Breeze, excitedly. “I never drank a drop of liquor in my life, and anybody who says I was drunk last night lies; that’s all.”