"Ah," said Marah, "they will be round here looking for you, then. I'll take the liberty of hiding your tracks." He went in to the other room and spoke a few words to one of the other smugglers. "Well," he said, as he came back to me, "they'll not find you now, if they search from now till glory. They'll think you fell into the sea." "But," I exclaimed, "I must go home! Surely I can go home now? They'll be so anxious." "Yes," said Marah, "they'll be anxious. But look you here, my son; folk who acts hasty, as you've done, they often make other people anxious--often enough. Very anxious indeed, some of 'em. That's what you have done by coming nosing around here. Now here you are, our prisoner--Captain Sharp's prisoner--and here you must stay." "But, I _must_ go home," I cried, the tears coming to my eyes. "I _must_ go home." "Well, you just can't," he answered kindly. "Think it over a minute. You've come here," he went on, "nosing round like a spy; you've found out our secret. You might let as many as fifty men in for the gallows--fifty men to be hanged, d'ye understand; or to be transported, or sent to a hulk, or drafted into a man-o'-war. I don't say you would, for I believe you have sense: still, you're only a boy, and they might get at you in all sorts of ways. Cunning lawyers might. And then you give us away and where would _we_ be? Eh, boy? Where would we be? Suppose you gave us away, meaning no harm, not really knowing what you done. Well, I ask you, where would _we_ be?" "I wouldn't give you away," I said hotly. "You know I wouldn't. I never gave you away about the hut in the woods." "No," he said, "you never; but this time there's men's necks concerned. I can't help myself--Captain Sharp's, orders. I couldn't let you go if I wanted to; the hands wouldn't let me. It'd be putting so many ropes round their necks." By this time I was crying. "Don't cry, young 'un," he said; "it won't be so bad. But you see yourself what you've done now, don't you?" He walked away from me a turn or two to let me have my cry out. When my sobs ceased, he came back and sat close to me, waiting for me to speak. "What will you do to me?" I asked him. "Why," he answered, "there's only one thing _to_ be done; either you've got to become one of us, so as if you give us away you'll be in the same boat--I don't say you need be one of us for long; only a trip or two--or, you'll have to walk through the window there, and that's a long fall and a mighty wet splash at the bottom." I thought of Mims waiting at home for me, and of the jolly tea-table, with Hoolie begging for toast and Hugh's face bent over his plate. The thought that I should never see them again set me crying passionately--I cried as if my heart would break.