He accordingly approached our hero, and tapped him on the shoulder.
Robert drew away slightly. Haley saw the movement, and hated the boy the more for it.
"Well, my lad," he said, "I find your story is correct."
"Those who know me don't generally doubt my word," said Robert, coldly.
"Well, I don't know you, or, at least, not intimately," said Haley, "and you must confess that I haven't the best reasons to like you."
"Did you suffer much inconvenience from your wound?" asked Robert.
"Not much. It proved to be slight. You were a bold boy to wing me. I could have crushed you easily."
"I suppose you could, but you know how I was situated. I couldn't run away, and desert your uncle."
"I don't know about that. You don't understand that little affair. I suppose you think I had no right to the gold I took."
"Then you are mistaken. My uncle got his money from my grandfather. A part should have gone to my mother, and, consequently, to me, but he didn't choose to act honestly. My object in calling upon him was to induce him to do me justice at last. But you know the old man has become a miser, and makes money his idol. The long and short of it was, that, as he wouldn't listen to reason, I determined to take the law into my own hands, and carry off what I thought ought to come to me."
Robert listened to this explanation without putting much faith in it. It was not at all according to the story given by Mr. Nichols, and he knew, moreover, that the man before him had passed a wild and dissolute youth.
"I suppose what I did was not strictly legal," continued Ben Haley, lightly; "but we sailors are not much versed in the quips of the law. To my thinking, law defeats justice about as often as it aids it."
"I don't know very much about law," said Robert, perceiving that some reply was expected.
"That's just my case," said Ben, "and the less I have to do with it the better it will suit me. I suppose my uncle made a great fuss about the money I carried off."
"Yes," said Robert. "It was quite a blow to him, and he has been nervous ever since for fear you would come back again."
Ben Haley shrugged his shoulders and laughed.
"He needn't be afraid. I don't want to trouble him, but I was bound he shouldn't keep from me what was rightly my due. I haven't got all I ought to have, but I am not a lover of money, and I shall let it go."