He was working himself up to a mad pitch of excitement. I half rose in agitation, and looked behind me. We were already so far from the shore that its line of cliffs was a mere blurred bank in the haze. But Joshua, in the same instant, had seized the occasion to justify the character he had given of himself. “Silence!” he said, not loud, but in a tone like a vice. “Who speaks of being out of nature, you crazy patch! Row on, and mind your business, which is to take us to the wreck!” The maniac creature shrunk, as quickly as he had flamed up, under the bitter voice. Lowering and trembling he applied himself to his sculls once more, and the boat sped on. “Harry,” I whispered, pale and gulping. “Did you understand?” “Yes. Him that lies with the pistol in the hill yonder. He thinks it’s Mr. Pilbrow, and that we’ve set him free!” He ended with an hysterical giggle. Here, in truth, it appeared, was this bedlamite’s attitude towards our guest explained. The infection of Harry’s laugh over the absurdity seized me. I struggled in vain to control myself. In another moment we were both of us doubling and rolling as if the devil were tickling our ribs. Joshua expressed no surprise, but nodded intelligently as we gasped ourselves sober again. He attributed our merriment, no doubt, to a general sense of the ludicrous in this wretched creature’s wanderings, of the likelihood of any significance or coherence in which he had, of course, no idea. As for the man himself, he regarded Harry and me no further than if we had been squeaking mice behind a wainscot; but sat with his vision attached once more, and more cringingly than ever, to the little wintry, venomous figure in the stern. We recovered ourselves, half fearful, from our convulsion, feeling rather, I think, like fugitives who had consciously betrayed their own whereabouts. But the explosion, in fact, had relieved the air; and thenceforth we began to talk together, moved by a common rebellion against the moral tyranny of the depression which had held us hitherto. But, for all that, it startled us near out of our skins, when Joshua of a sudden turned upon Rampick, and asked him roundly if he hadn’t any good smuggling yarns to recount to him. “Of hidden stores, and black nights,” said he; “and the ground giving up a sudden swarm of mushroom creatures, things squat and stealthy, shouldering kegs?” Rampick’s chest had seemed to fall in at the first word. It was painful to hear his breathing. But he made no attempt to answer. “Come!” said Joshua. “It’s fast confidences, man. You know what you know. These young gentlemen have given you away--but no further than to me, mind. Come! What happened underground in those days, before the sea took its toll of the vaults?” “Why, you should know, sir--_as_ well as me!”