After this little diversion, I was free to go down the gangway with Mr. Jermyn. The captain received us in the cabin. He seemed to know my "uncle Blick," as he called him, very well indeed. I somehow didn't like the looks of the man; he had a bluff air; but it seemed to sit ill upon him. He reminded me of the sort of farmer who stands well with his parson or squire, while he tyrannizes over his labourers with all the calculating cowardly cruelty of the mean mind. I did not take to Captain Barlow, for all his affected joviality.

However, the ship was sailing. They showed me the little trim cabin which was to be mine for the voyage. Mr. Jermyn ran ashore up the gangway, after shaking me by the hand. He called to me over his shoulder to remember him very kindly to my uncle. A moment later, as the hawsers were cast off, the little crowd on the wharf called out "Three cheers for the Gara barquentine," which the Gara's crew acknowledged with three cheers for Pierhead, in the sailor fashion. We were moving slowly under the influence of the oared boats ahead of us, when a seaman at the forward capstan began to sing the solo part of an old capstan chanty. The men broke in upon him with the chorus, which rang out, in its sweet clearness, making echoes in the city. I ran to the capstan to heave with them, so that I, too, might sing. I was at the capstan there, heaving round with the best of them, until we were standing out to sea, beyond the last of the fairway lights, with our sails trimmed to the strong northerly wind. After that, being tired with so many crowded excitements, which had given me a life's adventures since supper-time, I went below to my bunk, to turn in.

I took off my satchel, intending to tie it round my neck after I had undressed. Some inequality in the strap against my fingers made me hold it to the cabin lamp to examine it more closely. To my horror, I saw that the strap had been nearly cut through in five places. If it had not been of double leather with an inner lining of flexible wire, any one of those cuts would have cut the thong clean in two. Then a brisk twitch would have left the satchel at the cutter's mercy. It gave me a lively sense of the craft of our enemies, to see those cuts in the leather. I had felt nothing. I had suspected nothing. Only once, for that instant on the wharf, when we stopped to let Dick get his barrel aboard, had they had a chance to come about me. Yet in that instant of time they had suspected that that satchel contained letters. They had made their bold attempt to make away with it. They had slashed this leather in five places with a knife as sharp as a razor. But had it been on the wharf, that this was done? I began to wonder if it could have been on the wharf. Might it not have been done when I was at the capstan, heaving round on the bar? I thought not. I must have noticed a seaman doing such a thing. It would have been impossible for any one to have cut the strap there; for the capstan was always revolving. The man next to me on the bar never took his hands from the lever, of that I was certain. The men on the bar behind me could not have reached me. Even if they had reached me the mate must have noticed it. I knew that sailors were often clever thieves; but I did not believe that they could have been so clever under the mate's eye. If it had not been done at the capstan it could not have been done since I came aboard; for there had been no other opportunity. I was quite convinced, after a moment's thought, that it had been done on the wharf before I came aboard. Then I wondered if it had been done by common shore thieves, or "nickers," who are always present in our big seaport towns, ready to steal whenever they get a chance. But I was rather against this possibility; for my mind just then was much too full of Aurelia's party. I saw their hands in it. It would have needed very strong evidence to convince me that they were not at the bottom of this last attack, as they had doubtless been in the attack under the inn balcony.

Thinking of their cunning with some dismay, I went to my door to secure it. I was in my stockinged feet at the moment, as I had kicked my boots off on coming into the cabin. My step, therefore, must have been noiseless. Opening the door smartly, half-conscious of some slight noise on the far side, I almost ran into Captain Barlow, who was standing without. He showed a momentary confusion, I thought, at seeing me thus suddenly. It was a bad sign. To me, in my excited nervous state, it was a very bad sign. It convinced me that he had been standing there, trying to spy upon me through the keyhole, with what purpose I could guess only too well. His face changed to a jovial grin in an instant; but I felt that he was searching my face narrowly for some sign of suspicion.

"I was just coming in to see if you wanted anything," he said.

"No. Nothing, thanks," I answered. "But what time's breakfast, sir?"

"Oh, the boy'll call you," he answered. "Is that your school satchel? Hey? What you carry your books in? Let's see it?"

"Oh," I said, as lightly as I could, feeling that he was getting on ticklish ground. "I've not unpacked it yet. It's got all my things in it."

By this time he was well within my cabin. "Why," he said, "this strap's almost cut in two. Does your master let you bring your satchel to school in that state? How did it come to be cut like that? Hey?"

I made some confused remark about its having always been in that state; as it was an old satchel which my father used for a shooting-bag. I had never known boys to carry books in a satchel. That kind of school was unknown to me.

"Well," he said, fingering the strap affectionately, as though he was going to lift it off my head, "you let me take it away with me. I've got men in this ship, who can mend a cut leather strap as neat as you've no idea of. They'd sew up a cut like them so as you'd hardly know it had been cut."

I really feared that he would have the bag away from me by main force. But I rallied all my forces to save it. "I'm lagged now," I said. "I haven't undone my things. I'll give it to you in the morning."

It seemed to me that he looked at me rather hard when I said this; but he evidently thought "What can it matter? Tomorrow will serve just as well." So he just gave a little laugh. "Right," he said. "You turn in now. Give it to me in the morning. Good night, boy."

"Good night," I said, as he left the cabin, adding, under my breath, "Good riddance, too. You won't find quite so much when you come to examine this bag by daylight." After he had gone—but not at once, as I wished not to make him suspicious,—I locked my cabin-door. Then I hung my tarred sea-coat on the door-hook, so that the flap entirely covered the keyhole. There were bolts on the door, but the upper one alone could be pushed home. With this in its place felt secure from spies. Yet not too secure. I was not certain that the bulkheads were without crannies from which I could be watched. The crack by the door-hinge might, for all I knew, give a very good view of the inside of the cabin. Thinking that I might still be under observation I decided to put off what I had to do until the very early morning, so I undressed myself for bed. I took care to put out the light before turning in, so that I might not be seen lashing the satchel round my neck with a length of spunyarn. I slept with my head upon it.



CHAPTER XII. BRAVE CAPTAIN BARLOW

Very early the next morning, at about half-past four, a little before sunrise, I woke up with a start, wondering where I was. Looking through my little scuttle port, I could see the flashing of bright waves, which sometimes dowsed my window with a shower of drops. The ship was apparently making about three knots an hour, under all her sails. Directly I woke, I turned out of my bunk to do what I had to do. After dressing, I took my sail-making tools from my housewife. I had resolved to cut the letters from their hiding-place so that I might make them up into tiny rolls, small enough to hide in my pistol cartridges. Very carefully I cut the threads which bound the leather flaps of the satchel together. I worked standing up, with the satchel in my bunk. I could hardly have been seen from any point. In a few moments the letters were in my hands. They were small sheets of paper, each about four inches square. They were nine in number, all different. They were covered with a neat cipher very different from the not very neat, not quite formed hand of the Duke himself. What the cipher was, I did not know. It was one of the many figure ciphers then in use. I learned long afterwards that the figures which frequently occurred in them stood for King James II. Such as they were, those cipher letters made a good deal of difference to many thousands of people then living contentedly at home.

As soon as I had removed them, I rolled them up very carefully into pistol cartridges from which I drew the charges. I was just going to throw away the powder, when I thought, "No, I'll put the powder back. It'll make the fraud more difficult to detect." So I put the powder back with great care. Then I searched my mind for something with which to seal up the cartridge wads over the powder. I could think of nothing at all, till I remembered the tar-seams at my feet. I dug up a fragment of tar-seam from the dark corners of the cabin under my bunk. Then I lit my lamp with my little pocket tinder-box, so that I could heat the tar as I needed it. It took me a long time to finish the cartridges properly; but I flatter myself that I made neat jobs of them. I was trained to neat habits by my father. The Oulton seamen had given me a taste for doing clever neat work, such as plaits or pointing, so that I was not such a bungler at delicate handicraft as most boys of my age. I even took the trouble to hide the tar marks on my wads by smearing wetted gunpowder all over them. When I had hidden all the letters, I wrote out a few pencilled notes upon leaves neatly cut from my pocket-book. I wrote a varying arrangement of ciphers on each leaf, in the neatest hand I could command. I always made neat figures; but as I had not touched a pen for nearly a month, I was out of practice. Still, I did very creditably. I am quite sure that my neat ciphers gave the usurper James a very trying week of continual study. I daresay the whole privy council puzzled over those notes of mine. I felt very pleased with them when they were done.

I had not much more than a half-hour left to me when I finished writing them out. The ship's bells told me that it was seven o'clock. Cabin breakfast, as I knew very well, would be at eight. I could expect to be called at half past seven. I put the two flaps of the satchel evenly together, removing all traces of the thread used in the earlier sewing. Then I very trimly sewed the two flaps with my sail-needle, using all my strength to make secure stitches. I used some brown soap in the wash-stand as thread wax, to make the sewing more easy. "There," I thought, "no one will suspect that this was sewn by a boy." When I had finished, I thought of dirtying the twine to make the work look old; but I decided to let well alone. I might so easily betray my hand by trying to do too much. The slight trace of the soap made the work look old enough. But I took very great care to remove all traces of my work in the cabin. The little scraps of thread which I had cut out of the satchel I ate, as I could see no safer means of getting rid of them. I cannot say that they disagreed with me, though they were not very easy to get down. My palm, being a common sea-implement, not likely to seem strange in a ship's cabin, I hid in a locker below my bunk. My sail-needles I thrust at first into the linings of the pockets of my tarred sea-coat. On second thoughts, I drove them into the mattress of my bunk. My hank of twine I dropped on deck later, when I went out to breakfast. Having covered all traces of my morning's work, I washed with a light heart. When some one came to my cabin-door to call me, I cried out that I would be out in a minute.

When the breakfast bell rang, I walked aft to the great cabin, with my satchel over my shoulder. The captain asked me how I had slept; so I said that I had slept like a top, until a few minutes before I was called.

"That's the way with you young fellows," he said. "When you come to be my age you won't be able to do that." Presently, as we were sitting down to breakfast, he began his attack upon the satchel. "You still got your satchel, I see," he said. "Do you carry it about with you always? Or are you pretending to be a military man with a knapsack?"

I looked a little uncomfortable at this; but not from the reason which flashed through his mind. I said that I liked carrying it about, as it served instead of a side coat-pocket, which was perfectly true.

"By the way," he said; "you must let me take that beloved satchel after breakfast, so that I can get the strap sewn up for you."

It came into my mind to look blank at this. I stammered as I said that I didn't mind the straps being cut, because there was a wire heart to the leather which would hold till we got to England, when I could put on a new strap for myself.

"Oh, nonsense," he said, serving out some of the cold bacon from the dish in front of him. "Nonsense. What would your uncle say if you landed slovenly like that? Besides, now you're at sea you're a sailor. Sailors don't wear things like that at meals any more than they wear their hats."

After this, I saw that there was no further chance of retaining the satchel, so I took it from my neck, but grudgingly, as though I hated doing so. I heard no more about it till after breakfast, when he made a sudden playful pounce upon it, as it lay upon the chair beside me, at an instant when I was quite unprepared to save it.

"Aha," he cried, waving his booty. "Now then. Now."

I knew that he would expect a passionate outcry from me, nor did I spare it; because I meant him to think that I knew the satchel contained precious matters.

"No, no," I cried. "Let me have it. I don't want it mended."

"What?" he said. "Not want it mended? It must be mended."

At this I made a sort of playful rush to get it. He dodged away from me, laughing. I attacked again, playing my part admirably, as I thought, but taking care not to overdo it. At last, as though fearing to show too great an anxiety about the thing, I allowed him to keep it. I asked him if he would be able to sew the leather over the wire heart.

"Why, yes," he said. I could see that he smiled. He was thinking that I had stopped struggling in order to show him that I set no real value on the satchel. He was thinking that he saw through my cunning.

"Might I see you sew it up?" I said. "I should like to learn how to sew up leather."

He thought that this was another sign of there being letters in the satchel, this wish of mine to be present when the sewing was done.

"Why, yes," he said. "I'll do it here. You shall do it yourself if you like. I will teach you." So saying, he tossed me an orange from his pocket. "Eat that," he said, "while I go on deck to take the sights."

He left the cabin, swinging the satchel carelessly in his left hand. I thought to myself that I had better play anxiety; so, putting the orange on the table, I followed him into the 'tweendecks, halting at the door, as though in fear about the satchel's fate. Looking back, he saw me there. My presence confirmed him in his belief that he had got my treasure. He waved to me. "Back in a minute," he said. "Stay in the cabin till I come back. There's a story-book in the locker."

I turned back into the cabin in a halting, irresolute way which no doubt deceived him as my other movements had deceived him. When I had shut the door, I went to the locker for the story-book.

Now the story-book, when I found it, was not a story-book, but a little thick book of Christian sermons by various good bishops. I read one of them through, to try, but I did not understand it. Then I put the book down with the sudden thought: "This Captain Barlow cannot read. He thinks that these sermons are stories. Now who is it in this ship to whom the letters will be shown? Or can there be no one here? Is he going to steal the letters to submit them to somebody ashore?"

I was pretty sure that there was somebody shut up in the ship who was concerned in the theft with Barlow. I cannot tell what made me so sure. I had deceived the captain so easily that I despised him. I did not give him credit for any intelligence whatsoever. Perhaps that was the reason. Then it came over me with a cold wave of dismay that perhaps the woman Aurelia was on board, hidden somewhere, but active for mischief. I remembered that scrap of conversation from the inn-balcony. I wondered if that secret mission mentioned then was to concern me in any way. What was it, I wondered, that was put into her pocket by her father as she stood crying there, just above me? If she were on board, then I must indeed look to myself, for she was probably too cunning a creature to be deceived by my forgeries. The very thought of having her in the ship with me was uncomfortable. I felt that I must find some more subtle hiding-place for my letters than I had found hitherto. I may have idealized the woman, in my alarm, into a miracle of shrewdness. At any rate I knew that she would be a much more dangerous opponent than Captain Barlow, the jocular donkey who allowed himself to be fooled by a schoolboy who was in his power. I knew, too, that she would probably search me other letters, whether my ciphered blinds deceived her or not. She was not one so easily satisfied as a merchant skipper; besides, she had now two scores against me, as well as excellent reason to think me a sharp young man.

Presently, after half an hour's absence, the captain came back with the satchel, evidently very pleased with himself. He seemed to find pleasure in the sight of my pretended distress. "Why," he said, with a grin; "you've not eaten your orange."

"No, sir," I said, "I'm not very hungry just after breakfast."

"Why, then," he answered, "you must keep it for your dinner. Look how nice I've mended your strap for you."

"Thank you very much, sir," I said. "But thought that you were going to do it here. You were going to teach me how to do it."

"Well, it's done now, isn't it?" he replied. "It's done pretty good, too. I'll teach you how to sew some other time. I suppose they don't learn you that, where you go to school?"

"No, sir," I said, "they don't."

"Ah," he said, picking up the book. "You're a great one for your book, I see. There's very good reading in a book like that."

"Yes," I said, looking at the mended strap. "There is. How very neatly you've mended the strap, sir. Thank you very much."

He looked at me with a look which said, very plainly, "You've got a fine nerve, my lad, to pretend in that way."

I could see from his manner during the next few minutes that he wished to keep me from examining the satchel flap. No doubt he thought that I was on tenter-hooks all the time, to look to see if the precious letters had been disturbed. At last, in a very easy way, after slinging the strap round my shoulder, I pulled out my handkerchief, intending to put it into the satchel as into an extra pocket.

"I'm going up on deck, sir," I said. "May I take the book with me?"

As he said that I might, I swiftly opened the satchel, to pop the book in. I could feel that he watched my face mighty narrowly all the time. No doubt I looked guilty enough to convince him of his cleverness. I had no more than a second's peep at the flap, but that was quite enough to show me that it had been tampered with. I had finished off my work that morning with an even neatness. The bold Captain Barlow had left two ends of thread sticking out from the place where he had ended his stitch. Besides, my thread had been soaped, to make it work more easily. The thread in the flap now was plainly not soaped; it was fibrous to the touch, not sleeked down, as mine had been.

When I went on deck, I found the ship driving fast down Channel, making an excellent passage. I took up my place by the mizzen-rigging, near which there were no seamen at work, so that I could puzzle out a new hiding-place for my letters. I noticed, as I stood there, that some men were getting a boat over the side. It seemed a queer thing to be doing in the Channel, so far from the port to which we were bound; but I did not pay much attention to it at the time, as I was very anxious. I was wondering what in the world I could do with the pistol cartridges which I had made that morning. I feared Aurelia. For all that I could tell she was looking at me as I stood there, guessing, from my face, that I had other letters upon me. It did not occur to me that my anxiety might be taken for grief at having the satchel searched. At last it came into my head that Aurelia, if she were in the ship, would follow up that morning's work promptly, before I could devise a fresh hiding-place. At any rate I felt pretty sure that I should not be much out of that observation until the night. It came into my head that the next attack would be upon my boots; for in those days secret agents frequently hid their papers above a false boot-sole, or stitched them into the double leather where the beckets, or handles, joined the leg of the boot at the rim.

Sure enough, I had not been very long on deck when the ship's boy appeared before me. He was an abject looking lad, like most ship's boys. I suppose no one would become a ship's boy until he had proved himself unfit for life anywhere else. Personally, I had rather be a desert savage than a ship's boy. My experience on La Reina was enough to sicken me of such a life forever. This barquentine's boy came up to me, as I have said.

"Sir," he said, "can I take away your boots to black, please?"

"No," I answered, "my boots don't want blacking. I grease them myself."

"Please, sir," he said, "do let me take them away, sir."

"No," I said. "I grease them myself, thank you." I thought that this would end the business; but no such matter.

"Please, sir," he said, "I wish you would let me take them away. The captain'll wale me if I don't. He gave me orders, sir."

"Don't call me 'sir,'" I said. "I'll see the captain myself."

I walked quickly to the companion-way, below which (listening to us, like the creature he was) sat the captain, carving the end of a stick.

"Please, sir," I said, "I've already greased my boots this morning. I always grease them." (I had only had them about twelve hours.) "If I blacked them they'd get so dry that they would crack."

"All right. All right, boy," he answered. "I forgot you wore soft-leather boots. They're the kind they buy up to make salt beef of at the Navy Yard." He grinned in my face, as though he were pleased; but a few minutes later, when I had gone forward, I heard him thrashing the wretched boy, because he had failed to get the boots from me for him.

I soon found that I was pretty closely watched. If I went forward to the fo'c's'le, I found myself dogged by the ship's boy, who was blubbering from his whipping, poor lad, as though his heart would break. In between his sobs, he tried to tell me the use of everything forward, which was trying to me, as I knew more than he knew. If I went aft, the mate would come rolling up, to ask me if I could hear the dog-fish bark yet. If I went below the captain got on to my tracks at once. He was by far the worst of the three: the other two were only obeying his orders. I went into my cabin hoping to get rid of him there; but no, it was no use. In he came, too, with the excuse that he wished to see if I had enough clothes on my bunk. It was more worrying than words can tell. All the time I wondered whether he would end by knocking me senseless so that he might search my boots at his ease. I had the fear of that strongly on me. I was tempted, yet feared, to drive him from me by threatening him with my pistol. His constant dogging of me was intolerable. But had I threatened him, he would have had an excuse for maltreating me. My duty was to save the letters, not to worry about my own inconveniences. Often, since then, I have suffered agonies of remorse at not giving up the letters meekly. Had I done so, I might, who knows, have saved some two thousand lives. Well. We are all agents of a power greater than ourselves. Though I was, it may be, doing wrong then, I was doing wrong unwittingly. Had things happened only a little differently, my wrong would have turned out a glorious right. The name of Martin Hyde would have been in the history books. He watched me narrowly as I took off my waistcoat (pretending to be too hot), nor did he forget to eye the waistcoat. "See here," he said. "Do you know how a sailor folds a waistcoat? Give it to me now. I'll show you." He snatched it from my hands with that rudeness which, in a boorish nature, passes for fun; he only wished to feel it over so that if any letter were sewn within it he might hear the paper crackle. The sailor's way of folding a waistcoat, as shown by him then, was just the way which bent all the cloth in folds. He seemed to be much disgusted at hearing no crackling as he folded it. I could have laughed outright at his woeful face, had I been less anxious. Had he been worth his salt as a spy he would have lulled all my suspicions to sleep before beginning to search for letters. Instead of that he went to work as crudely as a common footpad..



CHAPTER XIII. IT BREEZES UP

After I had taken off my waistcoat, I went out into the 'tweendecks, then into the grand cabin, then into the space below the booms. He followed me everywhere, keeping me under observation, till I was tempted to tell him where the letters were, so as to have a little peace. At first he kept telling me stories, or making bad jokes; but very soon he grew weary of pretending; he became surly. At this point I asked him which was his cabin. He glowered at me for asking such a question, but he pointed it out to me. It was a cabin no larger than my own, on the opposite (that is the port) side of the 'tweendecks. I took the opportunity (it was a bold stroke, evidently displeasing to him) of looking in; for to tell the truth I had a suspicion that he slept in the grand cabin, on the top of the locker. I thought that the stateroom had another inmate. When I looked into it I expected to find myself in Aurelia's presence. I did not want to see her; but I wished very eagerly to know if she were in the ship or not. The stateroom was empty, but the bunk, which had been slept in, was not yet made up.

I do not know how much longer he would have dogged me about the ship. To my great joy he was called from me by the mate, who cried down the hatchway, bidding him come up at once, as there was "something in sight." Captain Barlow evidently wanted me to come on deck with him; but I was resolute. I said I would stop below to have another try at his stories. He went on deck surlily, saying something about "You wait," or "You whelp," I could not catch his exact words. He turned at the hatchway to see where I had gone. I had expected this move, so when he looked, he saw me entering the grand cabin, just as I had said. I watched him through the crack in the hinge; for I fully expected him to return suddenly. As he did not return on the instant, I darted into my own cabin just long enough to drop the letter cartridges into an old tin slush-pot which was stowed in the locker below the bunk. I had noted it in the early morning when I had done my sewing. I pressed the cartridges into the slush, till they were all hidden. In another instant of time the pot was back in the locker among the other oddments while I was back in the cabin hard at work at my sermons. I was conscious that the captain glanced through the skylight at me. No doubt what he saw reassured him. For the moment I felt perfectly safe.

About half an hour later, I heard a great noise of hauling on deck, followed by the threshing of our sails, as though they had suddenly come aback. I knew enough of the sea to know that if we were tacking there would be other orders, while, if the helmsman had let the ship come aback by accident I should have heard the officers rating him. I heard neither nor orders; something else was happening. A glance out of the stern windows showed me that the ship was no longer under way. She was not moving through the water. It struck me that I had better go on deck to see what was the matter. When I reached the deck I found that the barquentine was hove-to (that is, held motionless by a certain arrangement of the sails) about half a mile from a small full-rigged ship which had hove-to likewise. The barquentine's boat was rapidly pulling towards this full-rigged ship, with Captain Barlow sitting in the stern-sheets. The ship was a man-of-war; for she flew the St. George's banner, as well as a pennant. Her guns were pointing through her ports, eight bright brass guns to a broadside. She was waiting there, heaving in huge stately heaves, for Captain Barlow's message.

Now I had had alarms enough since I entered the Duke's service; but I confess this sight of the man-of-war daunted me worse than any of them. I knew that Captain Barlow had stopped her, so that he might hand over my letters to her captain; that was easily guessed The next question was, would the captain insist on taking the messenger to be examined in person. It was that which scared me worst. I had heard frightful tales about political prisoners. They were shut up in the Tower dungeons, away below the level of the Thames. They were examined there by masked magistrates who wrung the truth from them by the "bootikins," which squeezed the feet, or by the thumbscrews, which twisted the thumbs. My feet seemed to grow red-hot when I thought of that horror. I knew only too well that my youth would not save me. James the Second was never moved by pity towards a beaten enemy. I watched the arrival of the boat at the ship's side, with the perspiration running down my face. I began to understand, now, what was meant by the words high treason. I saw all the majesty of the English Navy, all the law, all the noble polity of England, arrayed to judge a boy to death, for a five minutes' prank. They would drag me on a hurdle to Tyburn, as soon as torture had made me tell my tale.

But enough of my state of mind. I saw Captain Barlow go up the ship's gangway, where an officer no doubt received him. Very soon afterwards he came down the gangway again, half followed by some one who seemed to be ordering him. His boat then shoved off for the barquentine. The man-of-war got under way again by swinging her great mainyard smartly about. The smother at her bows gleamed whiter at the very instant, as she gathered way. It was a blessed sight to me, after my suspense, I assure you; but I did not understand it till later. I learned later on that Captain Barlow was one of a kind of men very common in those troublous times. He was hedging, or trimming. He was quite willing to make money by selling the Duke's plans to the King; but he had the sense to see that the Duke's party might succeed, in which case the King's favour would not be worth much. So his treason to the Duke stopped short of the betrayal of men attached in any way to the Monmouth party. He would betray letters, when he could lay his hands on them unobserved; but he was not going to become an open enemy to the Duke until he knew that the Duke's was the losing side; then he would betray men fast enough. Until then, he would receive the trust of both factions, in order to betray a portion of the confidence received from them.

The day dragged by for me somehow, uncomfortably, under the captain's eye. It was one of the longest days I have ever known. It sickened me utterly of the life of adventure to which I now seemed pledged. I vowed that if I had the chance I would write to my uncle from Mr. Blick's house, begging to be received back. That seemed to be the only way of escape possible to me. It did not seem hopeful; but it gave me some solace to think of it. I longed to be free from these terrors. You don't know what an adventurous life is. I will tell you. It is a life of sordid unquiet, pursued without plan, like the life of an animal. Have you seen a dog trying to cross a busy street? There is the adventurer. Or the rabbit on the cliff, in his state of continual panic; he, too, lives the adventurous life. What does the world owe to the adventurer? But there. I become impatient. One patient hero in his garret is worth all these silly fireworks put together.

One thing more happened on that day. The breeze freshened all the afternoon till by bedtime it blew what is called a fresh gale. Captain Barlow drove his ship till she shook to her centre, not because he liked (like many sailors) to show his vessel's paces; but because he sat at his bottle too long after dinner. He was half drunk by supper time, too drunk to take the sail off her, so we drove on down Channel, trusting to the goodness of the gear. There would have been a pretty smash-up if we had had to alter our course hurriedly. As it was we were jumping like a young colt, in a welter of foam, with two men at the tiller, besides a gang on the tackles. I never knew any ship to bound about so wildly. I passed the evening after supper on deck, enjoying the splendour of that savage leaping rush down Channel, yet just a little nervous at the sight of our spars buckling under the strain. The captain was drunk before dark; we could hear him banging the table with his bottle. The mate, who was on the poop with me, kept glancing from the spars to the skylight; he was getting frightened at the gait we were going. "Young man," he said, "d'ye know the sailor's catechism?"

"No, sir," I answered. "Well," he said, "it's short but sweet, like a ration of rum. What is the complete duty of a sailorman? You don't know? It's this. OBEY ORDERS, IF YOU BREAK OWNERS. My orders are not to take off sail till Mr. drunken Barlow sees fit. You'll see a few happenings aloft just now if he don't see fit soon." Just at that instant she gave a lurch which sent one of the helmsmen flying. The mate leaped to his place with an angry exclamation. "Another man to the helm," he cried. "You, boy. Run below. Tell the captain she'll be dismasted in another five minutes." He was in the right of it. A blind man could have told that the ship was being over-driven. I ran down, as eager as the mate to put an end to the danger.

When I went below, I found the captain in my cabin, rummaging everywhere. He had flung out the contents of the lockers, my bedclothes, everything, in a jumble on the deck, which, in a drunken aimless way he was examining by the light of a couple of dip candles, stuck to the edge of the bunk. It was not a time to mind about that. "Sir," I said, "the ship is sinking. Come on deck, sir; take the sail off. The mate says the ship is sinking."

"Eh," said the captain furiously. "You young spy. I command this ship. What's the sail got to do with you?" He glared at me in drunken anger.

"You young whelp," he cried, grabbing me by the collar. "Where are your letters? Eh? Where've you hid your letters?"

At that instant, there came a more violent gust in the fierceness of wind which drove us. The ship gave a "yank;" there is no other word to express the frightful shock of her movement. She lay down on her lee beam ends with a crash of breaking crockery. Casks broke loose in the hold; gear fell from aloft; the captain was flung under me against the ship's side. The deck beneath us sloped up like a roof. In the roar of water rushing down the hatch I remember thinking that the Day of Judgment was come. Yells on deck mingled with all the uproar; I heard something thud like a sledge-hammer on the ship's side. The captain picked himself up holding his head, which was all one gore of blood from the crack against the ship's side. "Beam ends," he said stupidly. "Beam ends. Yes. Yes." He was dazed; he did not know what he said; but some sort of sailor's instinct told him that he was wanted on deck. At any rate he went out, pulling himself up the steep deck with a cleverness which I had not expected. He left me clutching the ledge of the bunk, staring up at the door away above me, while the wreck of my belongings banged about at my feet. I thought it was all over with the ship; but I was not scared at the prospect of death; only a little sickish from the shock of that sudden sweeping over. I found a fascination in the horrible open door, the black oblong hole in the air through which the captain had passed. I waited for the sea to pour down it. I expected to see a clear mass of water with fish in it; something quite calm, something beautiful, not the noisy horror of the sea outside. I suppose I waited like that for a full minute before the roar of the squall grew less. Then I told myself that I must go on deck; that the danger would be less, looking it in the face, than down there in the cabin. It was not pleasant to go on deck, any more than it is pleasant to go downstairs at two in the morning to look for burglars, but it was better to be moving than staying still. I clenched my fist upon the only dip which remained alight (the other was somewhere in the jumble under my feet). Then, catching hold of the door-hook I pulled myself up to the door, where I steadied myself for a moment. While I stood there I had a horrible feeling of the ship having died under my feet. She had been leaping so gallantly only five minutes before. Now she lay with her heart broken, while the seas beat her with great thumps.

Two battle-lanterns lit the after 'tweendecks. There was a great heap of staved in casks, slopping about in an inch or two of water, all along that side, thrown there by the smash. I could hear the men yelling on deck. Captain Barlow was swearing in loud shouts. I could hear all this in the lull of the squall. I heard more than that, as I stood listening. I heard the faint crying out of a woman's voice from the steward's pantry (next door to the captain's cabin) on the opposite side, across the steep, tipped up slippery decks. At first I thought it must be the poor cat; but as the wind passed, letting me hear more clearly, I recognized that it was a woman's voice, crying out there in the darkness with a note of pain. I did not think of Aurelia. She never entered my head. All that I thought was "Poor creature! What a place for a woman!" The ship was jerking, you might almost call it gasping, as the seas struck her; it was no easy job to climb along that roof-slope of the deck with nothing to hold on by. I got across somehow, partly by luck, partly by fingernails. I even managed to open the pantry door, which was another difficulty, as it opened inwards, into the cabin. As I opened it, a suck of wind blew out my light. There I was in the dark, with a hurt woman, in a ship which for all I knew, might sink with all hands in twenty seconds. It is queer; I didn't mind the ship sinking. What I disliked was being in the dark with an unknown somebody who whimpered.

"Are you much hurt?" I asked. "Hold on a minute. I'll strike a light." I shut myself into the cabin, so as to keep out the draught. My feet kicked among the steward's crockery. It was as dark in that cubby-hole as in a grave. The unknown person, probably fearing me, thinking me some rough drunken sailor, was crying out now more in terror than in pain. She was begging me not to hurt her. I probably frightened her a good deal by not replying. The tinder box took up all my attention for a good couple of minutes. A tinder box is not a thing to get light by hurriedly. You try some day, to see how quickly you can light a candle by one. When I got the candle lit, I thought of the battle-lanterns swinging outside all the time. I might have saved myself all that trouble by using a little common sense. Well. Wait till you stand as I stood, with your heart in your boots, down in a pit of death, you'll see how much common sense will remain in your fine brains.

When the flame took hold of the wick, so that I could look about me, I saw the lady Aurelia lying among the smashed up gear to leeward. She had been lying down, reading in a sort of bunk which had been rigged up for her on the locker-top. The shock had flung her clean out of the bunk on to the deck. At the same moment an avalanche of gear had fetched to leeward. A cask had rolled on to her left hand, pinning her down to the deck, while a box of bottles had cut the back of her head. A more complete picture of misery you could not hope to see. There was all the ill-smelling jumble of steward's gear, tumbled in a heap of smash, soaking in the oil from the fallen lamp. There was a good deal of blood about. Aurelia was lying in all the debris half covered with salted fish from one of the capsized casks. They looked like huge leaves. She seemed to have been buried under them, like a babe in the wood. She grew calm when she saw me. "There are candles under the bunk," she said. "Light two or three. Tell me what has happened."

I did not answer till I had lighted three or four more candles. "The ship's on her beam ends," I said. "It's the captain's fault. But never mind that. I must get you out. Are you badly hurt, do you think?"

"I'm all right," she said with a gasp. "But it's being pinned in here. I thought I was going to be pinned down while I was being drowned."

"Shut your eyes, please," I said. "Bite your lip. It'll hurt, I'm afraid, getting this cask off your hand. Are you ready. Now." I did it as gently as I could; but it made me turn all cold to think of the hand under all that weight.

"Can you withdraw your hand, now?" I asked, tilting the cask as far up as I could.

"No," she said. "Look out. I'll roll out." In another two seconds she was sitting up among the crockery with her face deathly white against the bulkhead; she had fainted. There was a water-carafe on a bracket up above my head. I splashed her face with water from it till she rallied. She came to herself with a little hysterical laugh, at the very instant when something giving way aloft let the ship right herself again. "Hold on a minute," I said. "Take this water. Now drink a little. I'll be back in a moment." The ship was rolling drunkenly in the trough of the sea; but I made a nimble rush to the cabin, where the captain's cruet of brandy bottles still swung from a hook in the beams. I ran back to her with a bottle of brandy. There were a few unbroken mugs in the pantry, so I gave her a drink of brandy, which brought the colour back to her cheeks. While she sat there, in the mess of gear which slid about as the ship rolled, I got a good big jug of water from the scuttle-butt in the 'tweendecks. I nipped on deck with it to ask the mate for some balsam, an excellent cure for cuts which most sailors carry to sea with them. There was mess enough on deck in all conscience. I found the foretopmast gone over the side, in a tangle of torn rope at which all hands were furiously hacking. The mate was on the fo'c'sle hacking at some gear with a tomahawk. I did not see the captain.

"Mr. mate," I cried. "I want some balsam, quick."

"Get out of this," he shouted. "Get out of this. I can't attend to your hurts. Don't come bothering here."

"It's for the lady," I said, "the lady down below."

"In my chest. Look in my chest till," he said. "Now stand dear. I've trouble enough without ladies in the case. Are you all clear, you, aft there?"

"All gone here, sir," the men shouted back. "Shall we sling a bowline over the foot?"

"No," he shouted. "Look out. She's going."

For just a second I saw the mass of spar all tangled up with sail rise up on a wave as it drifted past. I found myself wondering why we had all been in the shadow of death only a couple of minutes before. There was no thought of danger now. I ran below for the balsam, which I found without difficulty.



CHAPTER XIV. A DRINK OF SHERBET

I took what handkerchiefs I could find into the pantry with me. "There's no danger," I said. "The ship's all right. How are you now? Let me give you some more brandy." I gave her a little more brandy; then I helped her on to the top of the locker. Pouring out some water into the basin I bathed the cut on her head. It was a clean long cut which would probably have gone through the bone had not her hair been so thick. I dressed it as well as I could with balsam, then bound it tightly up with a white handkerchief. The hand was a good deal more, difficult to manage; it was nastily crushed; though no bones were broken. The wrist was so much swollen that I had to cut open the sleeve of her man's riding jacket. Then I bathed the hand with cold water mixed with vinegar (which I had heard was cooling) till I felt that the time had come to bandage it, so that the patient might lie down to rest. She had been much shaken by her fall. I don't think it ever once occurred to me to think of her as my enemy. I felt too much pity for her, being hurt, like that. "Look here," I said. "You'll have to wear that arm in a sling. I'll bandage it up for you nicely." She bore my surgery like the hero she was; it didn't look very wonderful when it was done; but she said that the pain was a good deal soothed. That was not the end though. I had to change cabins with her, since I could not let a hurt woman sleep in that bunk in the pantry; she might so easily be flung from it a second time. So I shifted her things into my cabin, where I made all tidy for her. As for the precious slush can, I stowed that carefully away, at the back of some lumber in one of the pantry lockers, where it would not be found. Altogether, it took me about twenty minutes to make everything ready, by which time the little accident on deck had been forgotten, except by those who had to do the work of sending up a new topmast; a job which kept all hands busy all night. The ship was making a steady three knots. under her reduced sail when I helped Aurelia across to her new room. There was no more thought of danger.

As I paused at the cabin door, to ask if there was anything more which I could do for her, the lady turned to me.

"What is your name?" she asked. I am ashamed to say that I hesitated, being half inclined to give her a false name; for my time of secret service had given me a thorough distrust of pretty nearly everybody. She noticed my hesitation. "As a friend to another friend," she added. "Life isn't all the King's service."

"My name is Martin Hyde," I said.

"Mine is Aurelia," she replied, "Aurelia Carew. Will you remember that?" I told her that I should certainly remember that. "We seem to have met before," she said, "more than once."

"Yes," I answered, smiling. She, too, smiled, but she quickly became grave again.

"Mr. Martin Hyde," she said, with a little catch in her voice, "we two are in opposite camps. But I don't know. After this, it's difficult. I warn you." Here she stopped, quite unable to go on. "I can't," she continued, more to herself than to me, "I can't. They oughtn't to have put this on me. They oughtn't. They oughtn't." She laid her unhurt hand on my shoulder for a moment. "Let me warn you," she said earnestly, "that you're in danger."

"In danger from you?" I asked.

"Don't ask me more," she said, "I hate myself for telling you even that. Oh, it's terrible to have to do it. Go now. Don't ask me more. But I had to warn you. But I can't do it myself." I did not know what to make of this; but I gathered that her task (whatever it was) from which she had shrunk so bitterly in the Dutch town only the night before, was now to be deputed to another, probably to the captain, perhaps to the Dartmouth justices. I did not like the thought; but I thanked her for warning me, it was generous of her to warn me. I took out the dagger with which she had tried to stab me. "You said we were in opposite camps, Miss Carew," I said. "But I wouldn't like to keep this. I mean I wouldn't like to think that we were enemies, really." I daresay I said other foolish things as well, at the same time.

"Yes, keep it," she said. "I couldn't bear to have it again. But be warned. Don't trust me. While we're in opposite camps you be warned. For I'm your enemy, then, when you least expect it."

Nothing much happened the next day until the evening, by which time we were off the Isle of Wight. With the aid of the mate, I doctored Aurelia's hand again; that was the only memorable event of the day. In the evening, the captain (who had been moody from his drunkenness of the night before) asked me to sing to him in the great cabin. I was surprised at the request; but I knew a few ballads, so I sang them to him. While I was singing, Aurelia entered the cabin; she sat down on one of the lockers below the great window. She looked very white, in the gloom there. She did not speak to me; but sat there restlessly, coughing in a dry hacking way, as though one of her ribs had been broken in the fall. I lowered my voice when I noticed this, as I was afraid that my singing might annoy her; I thought that she was suffering from her wound. The captain told me to pipe up; as he couldn't hear what my words were. I asked Aurelia if my singing worried her; but instead of answering she left the cabin for a few minutes. When she came back, she sat with her face in her hand, seemingly in great pain. I sang all the ballads known to me. When I had finished, the captain grunted a note of approval. "Well," he said, "so there's your ballads. That's your treat. Now you shall have mine." A little gong hung in the cabin. He banged upon it to summon his boy, who came in trembling, as he always did, expecting to be beaten before he went out. "Bring in a jug of cool water," he said. "Then fetch them limes I bought." As the boy went out, the captain turned to me with a grin. "Did you ever drink Turk's sherbet?" he said.

"No," I answered. "I've never even heard of it. What is it?"

"Why," he said, "it's a drink the heathen Turks make out of citron. A powder which fizzes. I got some of it last autumn when I made a voyage to Scanderoon. It's been too cold ever since to want to drink any, as it's a summer drink mostly. Now you shall have some." He took down some tumblers from the rack in which they stood. "Here's glasses," he said. "Now the sherbet is in this bottle here." He produced a pint glass bottle from one of the lockers. It was stopped with a wooden plug, carved in the likeness of a Turk's head. It was about three parts full of a whitish powder. A label on the side of the bottle gave directions for its preparation.

When the boy returned with his tray, the captain squeezed the juice of half a lime into each of the three tumblers. "That's the first thing," he said. "Lime juice. Now the water." He poured water into each glass, till they were nearly full. "White of egg is said to make it better," he said to me. "But at sea I guess we must do without that. Now then. You're the singer, so you drink first. Be ready to drink it while it fizzes; for then it's at its best. Are you ready?" I was quite ready, so the captain filled his spoon with the soft white powder. Glancing round at Aurelia I saw that she had covered her eyes with her hand. "Won't Miss Carew drink first?" I asked.

"I don't want any," she said in a low voice. Before I could speak another word the captain had poured his heaped spoonful of powder into my glass. "Stir it up, boy," he cried. "Down with it while it fizzes." Aurelia rose to her feet, catching her breath sharply.

I remember a pleasant taste, as though all of the fruits of the world had been crushed together into a syrup; then a mist surged all about me, the cabin became darker, the captain seemed to grow vast, till his body filled the room. My legs melted from me. I was one little wavering flame blowing about on great waves. Something was hard upon my head. The captain's hand (I could feel) was lifting my eyelid. I heard him say "That's got him." Instantly a choir of voices began to chant "That's got him," in roaring, tumultuous bursts of music. Then the music became, as it were, present, but inaudible; there were waves of sound all round me, but my ears were deafened to them. I had been put out of action by some very powerful drug, I remember no more of that evening's entertainment. I was utterly unconscious.

I came to, very sick, some time in the night. I was in the bunk in the pantry; but far too helpless in my misery to rise, or to take an account of time. I lay half-conscious till the morning, when I fell into a deep sleep, which lasted, I may say, till the evening; for I did not feel sufficiently awake to get up until about half-past five. When I did get up, I felt so tottery that I could hardly keep my feet. Someone, I supposed that it was Aurelia, had placed a metal brandy flask, with a paper roll containing hard-boiled eggs, on my wash-hand-stand. I took a gulp of the brandy. In the midst of my sickness I remember the shame of it; the shame of being drugged by those two; for I knew that I had been drugged; the shame of having given up like that, at the moment when I had the cards in my hand; all the cards. I was locked into the pantry; all my clothes were gone. I found myself dressed in a sailor's serge-shirt. All my other property had vanished. I remember crying as I shook at the door to open it; it was too strong for me, in my weak state. As I wrestled with the door, I heard the dry rattling out of the cable. We had come to anchor; we were in Dartmouth; perhaps in a few minutes I should be going ashore. Looking through the port-hole, I saw a great steep hill rising up from the water, with houses clinging to its side, like barnacles on the side of a rock. I could see people walking on the wharf. I could see a banner blowing out from a flagstaff.

A few more gulps of brandy brought me to myself I was safe anyhow; my cartridges had not been found. I dropped them one by one into the metal-flask. Whatever happened, no one would look for them there. Then I banged at the door again, trying to make people hear. Nobody paid any attention to me; I might have spared myself the trouble. Long afterwards, I learned that I was detained while Captain Barlow spoke to a magistrate about me, asking if I might be "questioned," that is, put to the thumbscrews, till it could be learned whether I carried a verbal message to my uncle, Mr. Blick. The magistrate to whom he first applied was one of the Monmouth faction as it happened, so my thumbs escaped; but I had a narrow escape later, as you shall hear. About an hour after the ship came to anchor, the cabin-door was opened by a sailor, who flung in an armful of clothes to me, without speaking a word. They were mostly not my own clothes; the boots were not mine; my own boots, I guessed, had been cut to pieces in the letter-hunt. All the clothes which were mine had had the seams ripped up. All my cartridges had been taken. About half of my money was gone. The only things untouched were the weapons in the belt. I laughed to myself to think how little reward they had had for all their baseness. They had stooped to the methods of the lowest kind of thieves, yet they had failed. They had not found my letters. My joy was not very real; I was too wretched for that. Looking back at it all long after, I think that the hardest thing to bear was Aurelia's share in the work. I had not thought that Aurelia would join in tricking me in that way. But while I thought bitterly of her deceit, I thought of her tears on the balcony in the Dutch city. After all, she had been driven into it by that big bully of a man. I forgave her when I thought of him; he was the cause of it all. A brute he must have been to force her into such an action. Presently the mate came down with orders to me to leave the ship at once. I asked him for my own clothes; but he told me sharply to be thankful for what I had, since I'd done no work to earn them; by work he meant the brainless manual work done by people like himself. So going on deck I called a boatman, who for twopence put me ashore on the Kingswear side of the river. He gave me full directions for finding Mr. Blick's house, telling me that in another five minutes I should come to it, if I followed my nose. As I started from the landing place I looked back at the barquentine, where I had had so many adventures. She was lying at anchor at a little distance from the Dartmouth landing place, making a fair show, under her flag, in spite of her jury foretopmast. As I looked, the boatman jogged my elbow, pointing across the river to the strip of road which edges the stream. "A young lady waving to you," he said. Sure enough a lady was waving to me. I supposed that it was Aurelia, asking pardon, trying to show me that we parted friends. I would not wave at first; I was surly; but after about a minute I waved my hat to her. Then I set off up the road to Mr. Blick's. Ten minutes later, I was in Mr. Blick's house, telling him all that I have now told you.

Mr. Blick kept me in his house for a day or two less than four weeks, when business took him to Exeter. I went with him; for he gave out that he was taking me to school there, as his dead sister had wished. His real reason was to pass the word through the country that King Monmouth was coming. He was one of the few men in full knowledge of the Duke's plans; but as we went about from town to town, spreading the word among the faithful, I saw that the Duke was expected by vast numbers of the country folk. Our clients were not much among the gentry; they hung by themselves, as, in this country, they always will, in times of popular stir. But among the poorer people, such as small farmers, or common labouring men, we were looked for as men sent from on high. At more than one little quiet village, when we went into the inn-parlour, we saw the men looking at us, half frightened, half expectant, as though we, being strangers, must needs have news of the King for whom they longed. Often some publican or maltster would tell us that Gyle (their name for the unfortunate Argyle, then a defeated man in Scotland, if not already put to death for his rebellion) was taken, looking at us carefully as he spoke, for fear lest we should be of the wrong side. Then, if we seemed sympathetic, he would tell us how perhaps another would have better luck elsewhere. After that, we would tell our news. It was dangerous work, though, carrying that message across the country. In many of the towns we found guards of the Devon red regiment of militia. I am quite sure that if Mr. Blick had not had me by his side, as an excellent excuse for travelling to Exeter, he would have been lodged in gaol as a suspicious character. The soldiers had arrested many travellers already; the gaols were full. King James's great man in those parts, the Earl of Albemarle, knew very well that something was in the air; but as he was a great lord the hearts of the poor were hidden from him. He had no guess of what was planning. In a way, the Duke's affairs were very well planned. The eastern end of Devon, all Somerset, with the western end of Dorset, were all ripe to rise, directly he appeared. They knew that he was coming; they were prepared to join him; they knew at about what time he would come, at about a fortnight from hay-harvest. Already, quite unknown to the authorities, we had men picked out to carry the news of the landing to different parts of the country. So far, I think, the Duke's affairs were well planned. But though we had all this enthusiasm in three counties, besides promises of similar risings in London, we were in no real case to take the field. Our adherents, however numerous, however brave, were only a mob, when all is said; they were not an army. The Duke thought that the regular army, or at least some regiments of it, would desert to him, as happened some years later, when the great Prince William did what my master attempted. But my master forgot that he had neither the arms nor the officers to make his faction a likely body for regular troops to join.



CHAPTER XV. THE ROAD TO LYME

We spread the tidings as far as Exeter, where Mr. Blick made some pretence of handing me over to a schoolmaster, one Hubble, a red-faced, cheery clergyman, one of the most ardent rebels on our side. Indeed, the clergymen everywhere supported us, as defenders of the Protestant faith, which that dastard James would have destroyed. Mr. Hubble made some excuse for not taking me in at the instant; but gave us letters of introduction to people in towns further on, so that we could pass the militia without difficulty, to give the news in western Dorset. So after waiting for a little while in Exeter, gathering all the news we could of the whereabouts of the troops of militia, we pushed on eastward, by way of Sidmouth, to the big town of Dorchester. As we came east, we found the militia very much more suspicious than they had been on the western side of Exeter. At every little town we found a strong guard so placed that no one could enter without passing under the captain's eye. We were brought before militia captains some two or three times a day. Sometimes we were searched; sometimes, if the captain happened to be drunk, we were bullied with threats of the gaol. Mr. Blick in these cases always insisted on being brought before the magistrate, to whom he would tell a fine indignant tale, saying what a shame it was that he could not take his orphan nephew peaceably to school, without being suspected of complicity in a rebellion. He would then show Mr. Hubble's letters, or some other papers signed by the Dartmouth magistrates. These always cleared our characters, so that we were allowed to proceed; but I did not like the way in which our descriptions were taken. Once on our journey, shortly after we had left Sidmouth, where the soldiers had been very suspicious, we turned out of the highway to leave word at a town called Seaton. We spread the watchword at several villages near the sea, before we came to Seaton, so that we were rather late in arriving. Thinking no wrong, we put up at one of the inns in Seaton, intending to pass the night there. We were at supper in our inn, when some yeomanry rode up to the door, to ask the landlord if an elderly man had passed that way with a boy. The landlord, who was a good deal scared by the soldiers, showed the captain in to us at once. We were quite as much scared to see him as the landlord had been. The captain of the soldiers was the very man who had given us such a searching examination in Sidmouth that morning.

"Well," he said to Mr. Blick, "I thought you were going to Dorchester. What brings you here?" "Sir," said Mr. Blick, "we've been so much interrupted by soldiers that we hoped to travel away from the main-roads."

"Well, sir," said the captain, "I've had you watched. Since you left Sidmouth, you've been into every inn upon the road, listening to a lot of seditious talk about Argyle. That's not my point, though. You gave out to me that you were going to Dorchester. Instead of that you slink off the Dorchester road at the first opportunity. You will have to explain yourself to my superiors. You're under arrest."

"Sir," said Mr. Blick, "I am sorry that you should think ill of me. We will gladly come with you to answer for our conduct to the authorities. But while the horses are being saddled, perhaps you will join us at supper. Landlord, bring a couple of bottles more. The captain sups with us."

But though the captain drank his couple of bottles of port, he did not become any gentler with us. As soon as supper was over we had to ride on again, with the troopers all round us.

"Sir," said Mr. Blick, "may I ask you where we are going with you?"

"Axminster," said the captain.

"Well. That's on my way," said Mr. Blick.

"It'll probably end your way, for some time," said the captain.

"I'm perfectly willing to abide by the decision of the authorities," Mr. Blick answered calmly. "But what is the meaning of all these soldiers everywhere? I've asked the people; but nobody seems able to give a straight answer."

"I think you know what the soldiers mean well enough," answered the captain. "If you hadn't known you wouldn't have turned out of the highway."

At about midnight we reached Axminster. We were taken before a couple of officers who sat at work by candlelight over a mass of papers, in an upper chamber of an inn. They had a wild air of having been without sleep for some time. Their muddy riding boots were drying in front of the fire. They had a map of the countryside before them, all stuck about with little flags, some red, some yellow, to show where the different troops of militia were stationed. After saluting these officers, the captain made his report about us, saying that we were suspicious persons, who had started from Sialmouth, towards Dorchester. He had waited to receive word from the troops stationed along the highway of our arrival at various points upon the road; but, failing to hear about us, he had searched for us, with the result that he had found us at Seaton, some miles out of our way. The officers questioned us closely about our plans, making notes of what we said. They kept referring to a book of letters, as though to verify what we said. Mr. Blick's answers made them take a favourable view of us; but they told him in a friendly way that the officer had done right to arrest us. They complimented the captain on his zeal. Meanwhile, they said, since we were going to Dorchester, we could not object to going with a military escort. A troop of cavalry was to start in a couple of hours; we could go with that.

We were in Dorchester for a few days, always under the eye of the soldiers. It was a bustling, suspicious time full of false alarms. Mr. Blick told me that the message "King Golden Cap. After six one," meant that the Duke was to be expected off Golden Cap, a cliff a few miles from Lyme Regis, any day after the first of the sixth month. He was on tenter-hooks to be in Lyme to greet him on his arrival; but this he could not hope to do. We were watched too carefully to be able to get away to a place upon the sea-coast. We had to be very careful how we sent our secret message abroad into the country. I have never known a time so full of alarms. People would ride in to the town at night with word that Monmouth was landed, or that there was fighting all along the coast, or that King James was dead. The drums would beat; the cavalry would come out clattering. People would be crying out. The loyal would come to their doorsteps ready to fly further inland. Every night, if one lay awake, one could hear the noise of spades in back gardens where misers were burying their money. Then, every day, one would see the troopers coming in, generally two at a time, with a suspected man led by a cord knotted to his two thumbs. Dorchester gaol was full of suspected people, who were kept in prison indefinitely, without trial, in very great discomfort. King James was afraid, he did not really know of what, so he took measures not so much to prevent trouble as to avenge his own fear. Mr. Blick used to send me to the prison every morning with loaves of fresh bread for the prisoners.

At last, after midnight, in the night of the 11th of June, a memorable day for the West, riders came in with news which destroyed the night's rest of the town. Monmouth had landed at Lyme the evening before, after sailing about in sight of the town all day. That was news indeed. It made a strange uproar in the streets. The trumpets blew from every inn-door to summons the billeted soldiers. Officers ran about bawling for their sergeants; the sergeants hurried about with lanterns, rousing the men from where they slept. All the streets were full of cavalry men trying to form in the crowd. At last, when they were formed, a trumpet sounded, making everyone keep silence. Then in the stillness an officer shouted out an order, which no one, save a soldier, could understand. Instantly the kettle-drums began to pound; the swords jingled; the horses whinnied, tossing up their heads. The soldiers trotted off smartly towards Bridport, leaving the town strangely quiet, strangely scared, to discuss the great news from Lyme.

I was watching the crowd at my bed-room window when the horsemen trotted off. While I stood looking at them, Mr. Blick ran upstairs, bidding me to come down at once, as now there was a chance to get to Lyme. "Come quick," he said. "The troops are gone. We must follow on their tracks. It'll be too late later in the morning." In less than twenty minutes we were trotting after the soldiers at a good pace, passing some scores of men on foot who were hurrying, as they said, to see the battle. Mr. Blick wore a sword which clattered as he rode. The people hearing the noise thought that he was an officer, perhaps a colonel, riding with his servant. Many of the men asked him where the battle was to be, whether it would begin before daylight, whether Monmouth was come with the French, all sorts of questions, to which we answered at random. In the light summer night we had a fair view of things. When we dismounted to lead our horses up or down the steep hills of that road, the straggling sight-seers came all round us as we walked, to hear what we had to tell. We could see their faces all about us, strange in the dusk, like ghosts, not like real men. At the top of one hill, Mr. Blick warned them to look out for themselves. He told them that before morning the highway would be patrolled by troops who would take them in charge as suspicious characters trying to join Monmouth, which actually happened the next day when the militia officers realized that war had begun. His words scared off a number of them; but many kept on as they were going, to see the great battle, which, they said, would begin as soon as it was light.

When the sun began to peep, we turned off the highway in order to avoid Bridport, which we passed a little after dawn. A few miles further on we felt that we could turn into the road again as we were safe from the militia at that distance. Then, feeling happy at the thought of the coming contest, which, we felt sure, would be won by our side, we pressed our tired nags over the brook towards the steep hill which separates Charmouth from Lyme.

It was early morning, about five o'clock, when we came to Charmouth; but the little town was as busy as though it were noon on fair-day. The street was crowded. People were coming in from all the countryside. A man was haranguing the crowd from a horseless waggon drawn up at an inn. The horses had no doubt been pressed into Monmouth's service some hours before. I should think that there must have been three hundred people listening to the orator. Men, already half drunk, with green boughs in their hats, were marching about the town in uneven companies, armed with clubs torn from the hedges. Weeping women followed them, trying to persuade their sons or husbands to come home. Other men were bringing out horses from private stables. People were singing. One man, leaning out of a window, kept on firing his pistol as fast as he could load. Waving men cheered from the hill above. The men in the town cheered back. There was a great deal of noisy joking everywhere. They cheered us as we rode through them, telling us that Monmouth had arms for all. One poor woman begged Mr. Blick to tell her man to come home, as without him the children would all starve. The crowd groaned at her; but Mr. Blick stopped them, calling the husband, who was in a sad state of drunken vainglory, to leave the ranks in which he tried to march. "We don't want fathers of families," he cried. "We want these tight young bachelors. They're the boys." Indeed, the tight young bachelors felt that this was the case, so the woman got her man again; lucky she was to get him. As far as I could judge, the crowd imagined us to be great officers; at any rate our coming drew away the listeners from the waggon. They came flocking to our heels as though we were the Duke himself. A drummer beat up a quickstep; the crowd surged forward. We marched across the fields to Lyme, five hundred strong. One of the men, plucking a sprig of hawthorn from the hedge, asked me to wear it in my hat as the Duke's badge, which I did. He called me "Captain." "Captain," he said. "We had a brush with them already, this morning, along the road here. Two on 'em were killed. They didn't stay for no more." So fighting had begun then, the civil war had taken its first fruits of life. There could be no more shillyshallying; we had put our hands to a big business. In spite of the noise of the march, my spirits were rather dashed by the thought of those two men, lying dead somewhere on the road behind us, killed by their own countrymen.

We are said to be a sober people; but none of those who saw Lyme that morning would have had much opinion of our sobriety. Charmouth had been disorderly; Lyme was uproarious. Outside the town, in one of the fields above the church, we were stopped by a guard of men who all wore white scarves on their arms, as well as green sprays in their hats. They stopped us, apparently, because their captain wished to exercise them in military customs. They were evidently raw to the use of arms. They handled their muskets like spades. "Be you for Monmouth, masters?" they asked us, grinning. When we said that we were, this very unmilitary guard told us to pass on. "Her've got arms for all," they said. "The word be 'Fear nothing but God.'" Some of them joked with friends among our party. They waved their muskets to us.



CHAPTER XVI. THE LANDING

Inside the town, there was great confusion. Riotous men were foraging, that is, plundering from private houses, pretending that they did so at the Duke's orders. The streets were full of people, nearly all of them men, the green boughs in their hats. On the beach two long lines of men with green scarves on their arms were being drilled by an officer. Horses were picketed in a long line up the main street; they were mostly very poor cart-stock, ill-provided, as I learned afterwards, with harness. Men were bringing hay to them from whatever haystack was nearest. From time to time, there came a loud booming of guns, above the ringing of the church bells. Three ships in the bay, one of them La Reina, were firing salutes as they hoisted their colours. It was all like a very noisy fair or coronation day. It had little appearance of an armed invasion. We found the Duke busy with Mr. Jermyn enlisting men in a field above the town.

"That's not Mr. Jermyn. That's Lord Grey," Mr. Blick said, on hearing me exclaim. "Mr. Jermyn's only the name he goes by. He's my Lord now, you must remember."

Just then the Duke caught sight of us riding up. He took us for local gentry, coming in to volunteer. He came smiling to welcome us. It must have been a shrewd disappointment to him to find that we were not what he thought. All his hopes were in the gentry, poor man. By the time we were on our feet with our hats off he had turned his back upon us as though to speak to Lord Grey, but really, I believe, to hide his chagrin. When he turned to us again both of them welcomed us, saying that there was work enough for all, in enlisting men, making out billets, etc. So without more ado we gave our horses to the ostlers at an inn. Mr. Blick at once began to blarney the standers-by into joining, while I, sitting at a little table, in the open air, wrote out copies of a letter addressed to the local gentry. My copies were carried from Lyme by messengers that afternoon but, alas for my master, they did not bring many gentry to us.

Now while I was writing at the table, under the great flapping standard, with the Duke, in his purple coat, walking about in front of me, I had a pretty full view of the crowd which ringed us in. We were circled about by a crowd of gaping admirers; from whom, every minute, Mr. Blick, or the Duke, or Lord Grey, would select a sheepish grinning man to serve under our colours. Among the crowd I noticed a little old lame man with a long white beard. He was a puppet-man, who was making the people laugh by dancing his puppets almost under the Duke's nose. As he jerked the puppet-strings, he played continually on his pan-pipes the ribald tune of "Hey, boys, up go we," then very popular. The Duke spoke to him once; but he did not answer, only bowed very low, with his hat off, which made the people think him an idiot or a jester. They laughed heartily at him. After a bit, it occurred to me that this old puppet-shaker always crept into the ring (with his hat off to receive alms) whenever the Duke spoke aside to Lord Grey, or to some other officer. I watched him narrowly to make sure, because something in his manner made me suspect that he was trying to catch what our leaders said to each other. I tried to recall where I had seen the old man; for I had seen him before. He had been at Exeter on the day we set out for Sidmouth, so much I remembered clearly; but looking at him carefully, with my head full of memories of faces, it seemed to me that he had been at Dorchester also. Surely an old man, lame in the left leg like this man, had gone down a narrow lane in front of me in Dorchester. I had not thought of it in Dorchester; but I thought of it now, with a feeling that it was strange to meet again thus in Lyme. I took good stock of the man, wondering if he were a spy. He was a dirty old man enough. His dirty fingers poked through ragged mittens. His cheeks were all swathed up in a woollen comforter. I made the mistake of looking at him so hard that I made him look at me. Seeing that I was staring at him, with a face full of suspicion, he walked boldly up to me, holding out his hat for my charity. We stared at each other, while he blew a blast on his pan-pipes, at which everybody laughed.

"Come, come, boy," said Lord Grey to me, "we want those letters done. Never mind about the puppets. Here, old man" (giving him a penny), "you take yourself off now. Or are you going to enlist?"

The people laughed again at this, while the old man, after a flourish of his hat to me, piped up lively quickstep, called "Jockeys to the Fair."

He disappeared after this. I did not see him again until our troubles began, later in the morning. I was finishing off the last of my letters, when some of our scouts rode in to make a grave report to the Duke. They had ridden in pretty hard, their horses were lathered all over. They themselves were in an internal lather; for they had just had their first sight of war. They had come into touch (so they declared) with the whole of Albemarle's militia, marching out to attack them. On being questioned, it turned out that they had heard this from an excited labourer who had run to them with the news, as they stood guard in a roadside field a few miles out of Lyme. They themselves had seen nothing, but the news seemed so probable that the Duke acted on it. He sent me off at once with a message to a clever, handsome gentleman who was in charge of the cavalry in the street. It was in giving the message that I saw the old man again. He was them limping up the street on the Sidmouth road, going fast, in spite of his lameness. I gave my message to the captain, who commanded his trumpeter to call to arms. The trumpeter blew nobly; but the sight of the confusion afterwards showed me how little raw troops can be trusted. There was a hasty scramble for horses rather than a setting forth. Some men quarreled over weapons; others wrestled with harness; others ran about wildly, asking what was happening, was it to be a battle, what did blowing on the trumpet mean? Some few, thinking the worst, got wisdom in those few moments. They took horses from the ranks, but instead of forming up with the regiments, they galloped off home, having had enough of soldiering at the first order. The foot behaved rather better, knowing, perhaps, that if they fought they would be behind hedges, in some sort of shelter. Even so, they seemed a raw lot of clumsy bumpkins as they marched up. Many of them were in ploughmen's smock-frocks; hardly any of them had any sense of handling their guns. They had drums with them, which beat up a quickstep, giving each man of them a high sense of his importance, especially if he had been drinking. People in the roadway cheered them, until they heard that there was to be a battle. Those who were coming in to join us found it a reason for hesitation.

After a lot of confusion, the army drew out of Lyme along the Sidmouth road, followed by a host of sightseers. Some of the best mounted rode on ahead at a trot, under the handsome man, Mr. Fletcher, who was their captain. I followed on with the foot-soldiers, who marched extremely slowly. They halted at their own discretion; nor did they seem to understand that orders given were to be obeyed. What they liked, poor fellows, was to see the women admiring them. The march up the hill out of Lyme was a long exhibition of vanity, the women waving their handkerchiefs, the men putting on all sorts of airs, jetting like gamecocks. When we got up to the top of the hill, I saw the old lame puppet-man, sitting on the edge of the wild, unenclosed, gorse-covered common-land which stretches away towards the town of Axminster. He was watching us with deep interest. Our men were spreading out into line upon this common. The horse was ranging on, bobbing about, far ahead. The foot were looking about eagerly as they got out of the ranks in which they had marched; but they could see no trace of any enemy. I caught sight of the Duke four hundred yards away, a little figure sitting alone on his horse, in front of half a dozen others. They were all scanning the country, all the way round. Presently I called out that I saw the enemy. Half a dozen cavalry were riding up a combe far off. But they were our own men, not the militia. They were some of our scouts riding off as "feelers" to spy out Albemarle's position. All the time that we were up there on the hill, the little old man portered about among the men, now listening to what they had to say, now asking the soldiers to look at his pretty puppets. When the returning scouts brought word that no troops were near us, so that we were free to march back again, he was still there, packing up his puppets in tarred canvas, as though about to march off to the next market-town. We marched past him, as he sat in the heather. I passed quite close to him, staring at him hard, for to tell the truth he was on my mind. I was suspicious of him. He took off his hat to me, with a smile; but he did not speak. Then my troops swung round, down the hill, leaving him alone there, watching the men pass.

Other things put him out of my mind during the afternoon. I was kept busy writing orders to scouts; for we were sending out scouts in every direction, partly to protect us from surprise, partly to direct new recruits to our headquarters. Mr. Blick, who knew the ground dictated the letters, helped by Mr. Fletcher, who studied a big map with great attention; I was writing all that afternoon. Lyme grew noisier during the day, as the recruits became more drunk. Many steady men turned away from us when they saw our disorder. I myself had been brought up to abhor drunkenness. I found the state of drunken uproar very terrible. I feared that such an army would never achieve any great deed. I thought that such sin would be punished. Our soldiers were not behaving like knights sworn to a good cause; but like boors at a fair. That day we lost our only good officer, Mr. Fletcher.

I have spoken of this gentleman. He was in command of the horse under Lord Grey. He was a much better soldier than my Lord; a better officer, too; a better man. Now in the day's confusion, with everything topsy turvy, the Duke's messenger, "Old Dare," rode into Lyme from Taunton, where he had galloped the day before to spread the news of our arrival. This Dare was a quick-tempered, not very clever, popular man with a great deal of influence in the countryside. On his way back to us from Taunton, someone lent, or gave, him a very fine horse. It may have been meant as a gift to the Duke; I do not know. Anyhow Old Dare rode in on this horse with letters from Taunton, which he handed to Mr. Fletcher to give to the Duke. Fletcher, our cavalry commander, had as yet no horse; so seeing the splendid charger on which Old Dare rode, he ordered Old Dare to give it up to him. He was the real commander of the army, with a military right, if no real right, to take what horse he liked from any subordinate officer. But Old Dare, like so many of our men, had no knowledge of what soldier's discipline meant. He saw, in Fletcher, a gentleman with whom he had lived as an equal for the last fortnight. He was not going to give up his horse like that; not he. Fletcher (speaking sharply) told him to obey without further words, at which Dare in a sudden flush of temper struck him with his riding switch. Fletcher was not a patient man. He could not let an act of gross mutiny pass unpunished, nor would he suffer an insult. He shot Dare dead upon the spot, in full view of some hundreds of us. It was all done in an instant. There was Dare lying dead, never to stir again. There was Fletcher, our only soldier, with a smoking pistol in his hand, thinking that he had taught the army a lesson in obedience. There was the army all about him, flocking round in a swarm, not looking at it as a military punishment but as a savage murder, for which he deserved to be hanged. Then the Duke hastened up to make things quiet, before the army avenged their friend. He drew Fletcher aside, though the people murmured at him for speaking to a murderer. He was unnerved by Fletcher's act. He had no great vitality. Sudden crises such as this unnerved him, by using up his forces. A crisis of this kind (a small thing in a great rebellion) was often enough to keep his brain from considering other, more important, more burning questions concerning the entire army. The end of this business was as unhappy as its beginning. Fletcher, our only soldier, was sent aboard the frigate in which the Duke had sailed from Holland. When the tide served, she set sail with him for Corunna in Spain. With him she carried all our hopes of success, together with a quantity of stores which would have been of use later in the expedition. As I left the Cobb, or pier, which makes Lyme harbour, I saw the little lame puppet-man turning away from the beach with a company of men who wore our green boughs. For a few steps I hurried towards him, so that I might overhear what he was saying; I made so sure that he was a spy. Mr. Blick, to whom I told my fears, bade me not to worry myself. "Why, boy," he said, "there are five hundred spies in Lyme; but they can't hurt us. Before they can get off to tell our enemies all about us there won't be any enemies left. We shall be marching at once. We shall drive everything before us." He spoke with such confidence that I believed him; yet the old man troubled me, for all that. When you see a face continually, at a time when you are excited, you connect the face with your excitement; it troubles your nerves.

The day wore by with all the unreality of a day of confusion. I was kept at work until the light was gone; then served at the Duke's table while he supped, then snatched a hurried supper while he talked with his officers. After supper, I had to go from billet to billet, looking for people whom the officers wished to see. Something very important was in the air. The discussion in the inn's great room was the first serious council of the war. About eleven o'clock, Lord Grey came out of the room, telling me to follow him. We went out into the street, where presently our men began to fall in, four or five abreast, about a hundred ranks of them. A few cavalry came, too, but not enough, I heard Lord Grey say, not enough to do any good with. In spite of all the efforts of those who loved us (by efforts I mean the robbing of farm-stables) we were very short of horses. Those which we had were not good; they were cart, not saddle-horses, unused to the noise of guns. Still, such as they were, they formed up in the street ahead of the foot. The force took a long time to form; for the men kept saying that they had forgotten something, their powder-horn, their cartridges, their guns, even. Then they had to run back to their billets to fetch whatever it was, while those who remained behind, puzzled at the movement so late at night, when they wished to sleep, began to get nervous. They began to ask where it was that we were going, was it to Axminster, or to Bridport.