In fact they belonged to the class known as river boatmen, though they had no hesitation to venturing out to sea on an emergency. The elder of these men, who might have seen some fifty years or more, was a short, thick set man with dark complexion, and small grey eyes overshadowed by thick, shaggy brows as black as night. His mouth was large when he chose to open it, but his lips were thin and generally compressed. He looked at you from under his eyebrows like one looking at you from a place of concealment, and as if he was afraid he would be seen by you. His name was David Rider, but was better known among his associates under the title of Old Ropes. The other was a man of about twenty-five or thirty, and was a taller and much better-looking man, but without anything very marked in his countenance. His name was Jones Bradley. "I tell you what, Joe," said his companion, "I don't like the captain's bringin' of this gal; there can't no good come of it, and it may bring us into trouble." "Bring us into trouble! everything that's done out of the common track, accordin' to you's a goin' to bring us into trouble. I'd like to know how bringing a pretty girl among us, is goin' to git us into trouble?" "A pretty face is well enough in its way," said Old Ropes, "but a pretty face won't save a man from the gallows, especially if that face is the face of an enemy." "By the 'tarnal, Ropes, if I hadn't see you fight like the very devil when your blood was up, I should think you was giten' to be a coward. How in thunder is that little baby of a girl goin' to git us into trouble?" "Let me tell you," said Ropes, "that one pretty gal, if she's so minded, can do you more harm than half a dozen stout men that you can meet and fight face to face, and if you want to know the harm that's goin' to come to us in this case I'll show you." "The gal, you know's the only daughter of old Rosenthrall. Why the captain stole her away, I don't know. Out of revenge for some slight or insult or other, I s'pose. Now the old man, as you're aware, knows more about our business than is altogether safe for us. As I said before, the gal's his only daughter, and he'll raise Heaven and earth but he'll have her again, and when he finds who's got her, do you suppose there'll be any safety for us here? No! no! if I was in the captain's place, I'd either send her back again, or make her walk the plank, as he did, you know who, and so get rid of her at once." "As for walking the plank," said the young man, laying his hand on his companion's shoulder, danger or no danger, the man who makes that girl walk the plank, shall walk after, though it should be Captain Flint himself, or my name is not Jones Bradley." "You talk like a boy that had fallen dead in love," said the other; "but anyhow, I don't like the captain's bringing the young woman among us, and so I mean to tell him the first chance I have." "Well, now's your time," said Bradley, "for here comes the captain."