I'll try to put
up something for you there; I'll have a man spoken to
who's posted on that line of biz. Keep a bright look-
out for him as soon's you make the islands; for it's on
the cards he might pick you up at sea in a whaleboat or
a steam-launch, and bring the dollars right on board."
It shows how much I had suffered morally during my
sojourn in San Francisco that even now, when our
fortunes trembled in the balance, I should have
consented to become a smuggler--and (of all things) a
smuggler of opium. Yet I did, and that in silence;
without a protest, not without a twinge.
"And suppose," said I, "suppose the opium is so
securely hidden that I can't get hands on it?"
"Then you will stay there till that brig is kindling-
wood, and stay and split that kindling-wood with your
penknife," cried Pinkerton. "The stuff is there; we
know that; and it must be found. But all this is only
the one string to our bow--though I tell you I've gone
into it head-first, as if it was our bottom dollar.
Why, the first thing I did before I'd raised a cent,
and with this other notion in my head already--the
first thing I did was to secure the schooner.
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