Evening had changed to midnight; not a breath of wind rustled the lewes, or rippled the glassy surface of the river. All were asleep but the guilty; and yet, at that lone hour, a group of men were circled round a fire beside a sandy cove, on which a boat was drawn ashore. They were all armed; and while some were preparing supper, others kept a vigilant look out. They had the air and appearance of wild and desperate men; and their conversation, maintained in that low tone which evinces suspicion, confirmed their lawless character. “What an infernal accident,” said one of the rovers, “to run her smack upon a sunken rock, and lose the vessel after boasting that he knew every creek and cove from Chiloe to Cape Francisco.” “He’ll never lose another,” observed a second scoundrel, coolly. “But Gaspard is over ready with his pistol. Before the schooner’s copper had scraped the coral a second time, Diego was dead as a mackarel. Poor devil!--the skipper allowed no time for explanations.” “Ay, and the captain was right,” observed a truculent ruffian, whose features were scarcely visible from the matted covering of coal-black hair, which hid them from chin to forehead. “I’m half sorry, too, that we lost the blundering fool--he didn’t mean it after all. There’s but a handful of the old Flambeaus left, and one now-a-days can’t trust to strangers.” “What a lucky craft that old Flambeau was,” said the first speaker: “her equal for success, in Captain Ramirez’ time, was never known. And then he kept all so nicely out of trouble; and though men grumbled at him now and then, why, in the long-run, he proved a wise-one. He valued no flag but one; and a yard of British bunting was a vessel’s full security. If we met an English trader short of water, why he supplied it freely; were provisions wanted, he put us on short allowance, and divided to the last biscuit with the starving crew. Well, the first ship--French, Dutch, or Spaniard, Portuguese or Dane--we met with afterwards, he made up the loss--ay, and helped himself to a double quantity, because he had succoured the distressed. Well, the foreigner probably complained to the first broad pennant, when he reached a harbour, when in dropped a disabled ship to tell that in her distress she had got all she wanted from the Flambeau. Had the gallant Ramirez remained, the finest schooner that ever crossed the line would be as she used to be, breasting the waters like a sea-gull. See what fell out: Gaspard couldn’t stand temptation, but must fall foul of a rich Jamaica-man,--and in a month a clipper sloop is dispatched to regularly run us down; and sticks to us like a bloodhound, until, like our namesake, we were regularly extinguished. Ah! poor Flambeau!” “It’s all true. We never knew the old captain’s loss, till after we had got a new one; and many’s the time Gaspard has heard that told him, when he didn’t like it. But where has he wandered to? He’s full an hour away.”