'Decimus Saxon is my name,' the stranger answered; 'I am the tenth child
of a worthy father, as the Latin implies. There are but nine betwixt me
and an inheritance. Who knows? Small-pox might do it, or the plague!'

'We heard a shot aboard of the brig,' said Reuben.

'That was my brother Nonus shooting at me,' the stranger observed,
shaking his head sadly.

'But there was a second shot.'

'Ah, that was me shooting at my brother Nonus.'

'Good lack!' I cried. 'I trust that thou hast done him no hurt.'

'But a flesh wound, at the most,' he answered. 'I thought it best to
come away, however, lest the affair grow into a quarrel. I am sure that
it was he who trained the nine-pounder on me when I was in the water.
It came near enough to part my hair. He was always a good shot with a
falconet or a mortar-piece. He could not have been hurt, however, to
get down from the poop to the main-deck in the time.'

There was a pause after this, while the stranger drew a long knife from
his belt, and cleaned out his pipe with it. Reuben and I took up our
oars, and having pulled up our tangled fishing-lines, which had been
streaming behind the boat, we proceeded to pull in towards the land.

'The question now is,' said the stranger, 'where we are to go to?'