‘Ay, hanged, mein Herr Captain. The devil can scarce save Dirk Hatteraick from being hanged for a murderer and kidnapper if the younker of Ellangowan should settle in this country, and if the gallant Captain chances to be caught here reestablishing his fair trade! And I won’t say but, as peace is now so much talked of, their High Mightinesses may not hand him over to oblige their new allies, even if he remained in faderland.’ ‘Poz hagel, blitzen, and donner! I--I doubt you say true.’ ‘Not,’ said Glossin, perceiving he had made the desired impression, ‘not that I am against being civil’; and he slid into Hatteraick’s passive hand a bank-note of some value. ‘Is this all?’ said the smuggler. ‘You had the price of half a cargo for winking at our job, and made us do your business too.’ ‘But, my good friend, you forget: In this case you will recover all your own goods.’ ‘Ay, at the risk of all our own necks; we could do that without you.’ ‘I doubt that, Captain Hatteraick,’ said Glossin, drily;’ because you would probably find a-’dozen’redcoats at the custom-house, whom it must be my business, if we agree about this matter, to have removed. Come, come, I will be as liberal as I can, but you should have a conscience.’ ‘Now strafe mich der deyfel! this provokes me more than all the rest! You rob and you murder, and you want me to rob and murder, and play the silver-cooper, or kidnapper, as you call it, a dozen times over, and then, hagel and windsturm! you speak to me of conscience! Can you think of no fairer way of getting rid of this unlucky lad?’ ‘No, mein Herr; but as I commit him to your charge-’ ‘To my charge! to the charge of steel and gunpowder! and--well, if it must be, it must; but you have a tolerably good guess what’s like to come of it.’ ‘O, my dear friend, I trust no degree of severity will be necessary,’ replied Glossin. ‘Severity!’ said the fellow, with a kind of groan, ‘I wish you had had my dreams when I first came to this dog-hole, and tried to sleep among the dry seaweed. First, there was that d-d fellow there, with his broken back, sprawling as he did when I hurled the rock over a-top on him, ha, ha! You would have sworn he was lying on the floor where you stand, wriggling like a crushed frog, and then--’ ‘Nay, my friend,’ said Glossin, interrupting him, ‘what signifies going over this nonsense? If you are turned chicken-hearted, why, the game’s up, that’s all; the game’s up with us both.’ ‘Chicken-hearted? no. I have not lived so long upon the account to start at last, neither for devil nor Dutchman.’ ‘Well, then, take another schnaps; the cold’s at your heart still. And now tell me, are any of your old crew with you?’ ‘Nein; all dead, shot, hanged, drowned, and damned. Brown was the last. All dead but Gipsy Gab, and he would go off the country for a spill of money; or he’ll be quiet for his own sake; or old Meg, his aunt, will keep him quiet for hers.’ ‘Which Meg?’