The drunken smuggler who had sung of Captain Glen was the only occupant of the room when we entered: he sat half asleep in his chest, still clutching his pannikin, still muttering about the boatswain. He was an Italian by birth, so Marah told me. He was known as Gateo. When he was sober he was a good seaman, but when he was drunk he would do nothing but sing of Captain Glen until he dropped off to sleep. He had served in the Navy, Marah told me, and had once been a boatswain's mate in the _Victory_; but he had deserted, and now he was a smuggler living in a hole in the earth. "And now," said Marah, after he had told me all this, "you and me will have to talk. Step into the other room there, you boys," he cried to the other smugglers: "I want to have a word with master here." One of the men--he was the big man who had raised the alarm on us; I never knew his real name, everybody always called him Extry--said glumly that he "wasn't going to oblige boys, not for dollars." Marah turned upon him, and the two men faced each other; the others stood expectantly, eager for a fight. "Step into the other room there," repeated Marah quietly. "I ain't no pup nor no nigger-man," said Extry. "You ain't going to order me." Marah seemed to shrink into himself and to begin to sparkle all over--I can't describe it: that is the effect he produced--he seemed to settle down like a cat going to spring. Extry's hand travelled round for his sheath-knife, and yet it moved indecisively, as though half afraid. And then, just as I felt that Extry would die from being looked at in that way, he hung his head, turned to the door, and walked out sheepishly according to order. He was beaten. "No listening now," said Marah, as they filed out. "Keep on your own side of the fence." "Shall we take Gatty with us?" said one of the men. "Let him lie," said Marah; "he's hove down for a full due, Gatty is." The men disappeared with their prisoner. Marah looked after them for a moment. "Now," he said, "come on over here to the table, Master Jim." He watched me with a strange grin upon his face; I knew that grin; it was the look his face always bore when he was worried. "Now we will come to business. Lie back against the hammocks and rest; I'm going to talk to you like a father." I lay back upon the lashed-up hammocks and he began. "I suppose you know what you've done? You've just about busted yourself. D'ye know that? You thought you'd rescue the pugs"--he meant coastguards. "Well, you haven't. You have gone and shoved your head down a wasp's nest, so you'll find. How did you get here, in the first place? What gave you your clue?" "I saw the coastguards up above here yesterday," I answered, "and I thought I heard voices speaking from below the brow of the cliff, so then I searched about till I found a hole, and so I got down here."