"If I were you, I would not call upon God in such a case," said Captain Vance, whose coolness and self-possession afforded a complete contrast to the excitement and alarm conspicuous in the bearing of his elder companion. "You had better turn your face downward than upward when you call for help; for you are more likely to have sympathy, in the present business, from the powers below than from the powers above. If prayer is the longing of the heart rather than the speech of the lips--as I heard the man who was looking in at the window say a year or so ago--you would have more chance for help by praying to the devil, Mr Ashleigh; that is, if his infernal majesty should think that any more assistance to you is needed to buy you." "It is evident, captain," retorted Mr Ashleigh, "that you are now in one of your philosophical moods, as Billy Bowsprit calls them. I cannot see, however, that, even in the view of our relative positions which you are now taking, you have any advantage of me. I have long been familiar with the saying that `the receiver is as bad as the thief;' but I have never heard, if my memory serves me rightly, that the receiver is worse than the thief." "Nevertheless, I have the advantage of you," quietly answered Captain Vance. "I do not pretend to be any better than I am; I do not `wear the livery of heaven to serve the devil in.'" "Not in `your vocation, Hal,'" said Mr Ashleigh; "that is, not here, on shipboard; but at home you are, I am sure, just as much a hypocrite as I am." "There is some pith in that retort," replied Captain Vance, in a somewhat yielding tone. "Ah! we are all more or less hypocrites, Mr Ashleigh; as the poet says, `we are all shadows to each other.'" "Besides," continued Mr Ashleigh, "nobody in this neighbourhood would recognise you in that disguise and by this light; whereas, this building is known to belong to me, and the discovery of the business which is carried on here would, therefore, ruin me." "Pardon the lightness of my manner of speaking," said the young man, in an earnest tone of voice. "My real reason for speaking so was not on account of want of concern in your interests, but because there is, in fact, no danger to you, or to any one of us, in any discovery made by the individual who just now peeped in upon us." "I think that you intimated, a few moments ago," remarked Ashleigh, "that you know the person who was reconnoitring us. Who is he?" "John Alvan Coe," was the answer; "son of old Mr Coe, who owns a plantation at the head of Saint John's Creek, a few miles from this place." "Then I am lost," exclaimed Ashleigh, in increased alarm. "No man in this county--I may say in this State--can surpass him in ferreting out a secret, when once he has obtained a hint of it."