Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/396

 Yes, Stumps had many a time while on the sea muttered to himself, "Too late!" He did so once again in that low public-house near the docks. Uncle Rik overheard him, and a feeling of profound pity arose within him.

"I beg pardon," he said, and at the first word Stumps looked quickly, almost fiercely, up, "your name, I believe, is Gibson."

"No, it isn't—I, that is to say—Well, yes it is. Sailors has got aliases, you know, sometimes. What d' ye want wi' me?"

"You were acquainted in Bombay," resumed Captain Wright, very quietly, as he sat down opposite to Stumps, "with a young man named Wright—Robin Wright?"

Stumps's face became deadly pale.

"Ah! I see you were," resumed the captain; "and you and he had something to do, now, with bags of some sort?"

The captain was, as the reader knows, profoundly ignorant of everything connected with the bags except their existence, but he had his suspicions, and thought this a rather knowing way of inducing Stumps to commit himself. His surprise, then, may be imagined when Stumps, instead of replying, leaped up and dashed wildly out of the room, overturning the pot of beer upon Captain Rik's legs.