صفحة 332 من 416

When the supposed gunboat had removed the prisoner from his deck

and borne away (for a while) on the course to St. Andrew's, Nat,

relieved of responsibility, ran over to Grande Mignon and into

the harbor of Freekirk Head.

His purpose in this was twofold, and treacherous in both cases.

First he lost no time in spreading the details of how Code

Schofield had been captured in a drunken brawl at St. Pierre and

was fighting the jailers in St. Andrew's. Secondly, he had a long

private interview with Bill Boughton, in which he tried to get

the storekeeper to sign a contract for his (Burns's) fish at a

certain price.

While the former was meanness of a hideous kind, this latter move

was one of treachery against the men of Freekirk Head. The worst

part of it was that Nat had about a hundred quintals of

splendid-looking cod (every pound he had caught) in his hold, and

these he handed over to Boughton as a sample of what was to come

from him very shortly.