"So," Granger said to himself, "I am not to have it all my own way, it would seem. The good Bufton has evidently two strings to his bow. Yet how in Heaven's name has he done it! How has he formed an intimacy with any one on board the schooner? Later, perhaps, I shall know, as well as his reason for doing so. At least let me try for the means of knowing as soon as possible." The means he took were to proceed at once up the stairs himself, doing so very quietly and as stealthily as he who had gone before him had done; and then, when on the unclean stone passage, he went quietly past the door of the room where the men were until he came to another door next to it. "This may do," he said. "I think it may. I have slept in most of these rooms when my affairs required my presence here. And if I remember aright--nay! as I know it is, there are communicating doors between these two rooms. I should indeed learn something." With every precaution that it was possible to take, he opened now the door of the second room, seeing at once as he did so that it had not been let nor occupied overnight; then he shut it, and, finding the key within, locked it. After which, sitting down upon the bedside, he drew off his shoes and laid them on the bed. "If no one comes to this room for a quarter of an hour," he thought, "as no one is likely to come, since it requires no attention, I ought to hear all I desire." Upon which he crept quietly to the communicating door, and listened to the conversation that was already being carried on upon the other side of it. CHAPTER XVIII. RUSE CONTRE RUSE. "If it could be done," Granger heard Bufton say, those being the first words he caught, "it would ease me for ever. He is a weight upon my existence, and I would pay you well. Have you thought of it since we met two days ago across the water at Charlton?" "Across the water! At Charlton! So," muttered Granger, "that is it. While I supposed my friend was in London, he has been on the other side planning his own schemes. And who is the man who is a weight upon his existence? Who? Can I guess? Perhaps!" "Yes, I have thought of it," he heard the voice of the mate reply, and he knew at once that the owner of that voice was neither Englishman nor English colonist, in spite of his speaking the tongue well. Perhaps, instead, a Swede or Salzburger, such as the colony of Georgia was much peopled with. "Yes, I have thought of it. Very much I have. But it is hard. You see he is a friend of the master's. He sells him many men and women. The master knows him well." "So do I," Granger whispered. "So do I know him well. I know the man who is a weight on your existence, Bufton!" And, even as he thus mused, his hand dropped into the pocket by his side and touched the butt of a pistol in it. Though at the same time he muttered between his teeth, "Not yet. Let me hear more.