‘Grant me a free pardon!’ cried Tom, stopping in his walk and looking at the mate. ‘What am I to be pardoned for? Sins I never committed! Pardon me? Curse them! Where would I go? I must think. Give me a globe of the world. Stab through England--through the heart of that little bog of land that bands and irons and exiles its honourable toilers--and where the point comes on out t’other side is the spot I’d choose, if you grant me but a rock there to live on.’ ‘My dear Butler,’ exclaimed Bates, ‘there is no need for me to assure you, I hope, that I quite see how you are situated. You have your liberty, and you must keep it.’ ‘Aye, indeed!’ cried I. ‘You must sail to some place where you’ll be safe,’ continued the mate. ‘I owe you my life, and with your leave I’ll stick to you till I see you safe. We’re brother-sailors, Butler. I know what’s expected of me, and I know my own heart.’ ‘Mr. Bates, I thank you,’ said I. ‘It won’t be human to carry you where I shall wish to go!’ exclaimed Tom. ‘They’ll get news of the convict ship at home, and your wife will think you dead. And, then, here’s Johnstone.’ He placed his hand upon the lad’s shoulder. ‘Must I carry him about with me till I’ve fixed a spot? He’s got a good home and fond parents. And then there’s his calling. Why, what kind of a precious outlook is this sort of thing for man, boy, or beast?’ he exclaimed, with a sneer. ‘It’s seeing the world,’ said Will. Tom laughed, but with no face of merriment. ‘What place is in your mind, Butler?’ said the mate. My sweetheart made no answer; his eyes were fixed upon me. Bates repeated his question, and still Tom gazed at me in silence. ‘Marian,’ said he presently, ‘you are with me, dearest. Is it your wish to remain with me?’ ‘Where you go I must go, if you would not break my heart.’ ‘What’s there to prevent your living in England, Captain Butler?’ here interrupted Will. ‘Aren’t there wilds and solitudes in England in which a man could burrow as secretly as in the loneliest island in the ocean?’ I frowned, observing Tom’s face, and bade the boy hold his tongue. ‘I’d run no risks if I were you, Butler,’ said Mr. Bates. ‘Would ye take a suggestion or two amiss?’ ‘What d’ye want to say, Bates?’ ‘You’ll want a place where there are no English. No need to lift the Southern Cross into view to find it.’ He looked at me. ‘There are scores of villages in Spain, away over in Austria and Hungary, down in Italy and other Mediterranean nations, in any one of which, under any sort of colour you choose to fly, you’d flourish as secure--you and this lady as your wife--as if you mined a lodging for yourselves in a Galapagos rock.’ ‘We’ll not live in Europe,’ said I; ‘London is always too close there.’ ‘London’s the safest place in the world to hide in,’ said Will. ‘Don’t talk of hiding,’ cried I, angrily.