“At night time we go out of the cavern in our long boats, and meet ships which are creeping close to shore; sometimes they are friends who come from France or Spain with smuggled goods, and sometimes they are strange craft. If they be friends we unload the vessel, and run up our boats into the cave again, then the vessel stands off shore until the next night, and so on until we have emptied her; but if she is _not_ a friendly craft we act according to circumstances. Sometimes we seize her goods, if we are very short, and the articles are of any value; they can never find us out.” “But did you never fall across any of the king’s cruisers?” said Tim. “Yes, many a time; but, lor’ bless yer simple heart, we don’t mind them, you know.” “Don’t you, though?” “No, not in the least.” “But they carry long guns, and might——” “Exactly; but that ain’t nothing when you are used to it.” “No, I suppose not,” said Tim, with a sigh. “A ten pound cannon shot playing nine pins with your legs ain’t nothing when you get used to it; but getting used to it is the thing,” said Tim, very slowly and solemnly; “but I shouldn’t—never.” “Yes you would.” “No, I shouldn’t.” “Lor, man! a broken arm, or a leg or two knocked off, don’t make much difference to any of our gang.” “Nor a broken head either, I should think,” Tim said to himself, doubtingly. “We’ve got a famous cook, a bit of a tailor, a good doctor, a gunsmith, and other chaps in our band, so we manage to make a pleasant life of it.” “I shouldn’t like it.” “Why not?” “Because you might fall foul of such a man as Lieut. Garnet and _his_ crew some day; and if you did——” “And if we did, what then? We should have to fight hard, that’s all.” “That’s all, eh?” thought Tim; “but that’s a little more than _I_ should care about.” “Why, a fight once in a while is the life and soul of a bold smuggler. You have no notion how it gives one an appetite.” “I should think that a ten-pound cannon shot in one’s stomach would be a trifle more than even a smuggler could digest,” said Tim; “but, as you very wisely remarked once before, there’s no telling when one gets used to it.” “Just so, my brave lad,” said the smuggler chief, laughing. “I like to hear you talk in that light-hearted way, for it convinces me that, after all, you’ve got some good stuff in you, and that your heart is of old British oak.... Our boats are going out to-night; we expect a schooner off the shore from France about midnight, just after the moon sets. I’ll take you with me; and, to try you—unless you wish to be hung as a useless knave among us—I’ll give you the honour of mounting the stranger’s decks first.” “First!” gasped Tim. “The first man to board the stranger’s decks! Why, she might be a revenue cruiser or a well-armed stranger.” “That’s what she really is, a well-armed stranger, nothing else. She must come within gun-shot of us, for she’s obliged to round the headland in order to get into port.”