"Comfortable, you scoundrel!" cried Penelly as soon as he was alone.  "I shall never be comfortable till the news comes in that you have been lost overboard in a storm.  I've been a fool.  I was a fool to do such a thing.  I only thought it would give him a ducking; and I'm a greater fool to try and bribe that scoundrel.  He'll be always bleeding me now. I'd far better have set him at defiance and bid him do his worst.  Bah! I wish I was not such a coward."