“I didn't say I was going either to Nova Scotia or with you,” said I, “and I think I could make a better bargain elsewhere.” “So could I, maybe,” said he, fuming of spirits till I felt sick. “And it's time I was doin' something for the good of my country.” With that he rose to his feet with a look of great moral resolution, and made as if for the door, but by this time I understood him better. “Sit down, ye muckle hash!” said I, and I stood over him with a most threatening aspect. “By the Lord!” said he, “that's a Greig anyway!” “Ay!” said I. “ye seem to ken the breed. Can I get another vessel abroad besides yours?” “Ye can not,” said he, with a promptness I expected, “unless ye wait on the _Sea Pyat_. She leaves for Jamaica next Thursday; and there's no' a spark of the Christian in the skipper o' her, one Macallum from Greenock.” For the space of ten minutes I pondered over the situation. Undoubtedly I was in a hole. This brute had me in his power so long as my feet were on Scottish land, and he knew it. At sea he might have me in his power too, but against that there was one precaution I could take, and I made up my mind. “I'll give you four pounds--half at leaving the quay and the other half when ye land me.” “My conscience wadna' aloo me,” protested the rogue; but the greed was in his face, and at last he struck my thumb on the bargain, and when he did that I think I felt as much remorse at the transaction as at the crime from whose punishment I fled. “Now,” said I, “tell me how you knew me and heard about--about--” “About what?” said he, with an affected surprise. “Let me tell ye this, Mr. Greig, or whatever your name may be, that Dan Risk is too much of the gentleman to have any recollection of any unpleasantness ye may mention, now that he has made the bargain wi' ye. I ken naethin' aboot ye, if ye please: whether your name's Greig or Mackay or Habbie Henderson, it's new to me, only ye're a likely lad for a purser's berth in the _Seven Sisters._” And refusing to say another word on the topic that so interested me, he took me down to the ship's side, where I found the _Seven Sisters_ was a brigantine out of Hull, sadly in the want of tar upon her timbers and her mainmast so decayed and worm-eaten that it sounded boss when I struck it with my knuckles in the by-going. Risk saw me doing it. He gave an ugly smile. “What do ye think o' her? said he, showing me down the companion. “Mighty little,” I told him straight. “I'm from the moors,” said I, “but I've had my feet on a sloop of Ayr before now; and by the look of this craft I would say she has been beeking in the sun idle till she rotted down to the garboard strake.” He gave his gleed eye a turn and vented some appalling oaths, and wound up with the insult I might expect--namely, that drowning was not my portion.