But while he peered speech broke from me—words and a wild laugh.

"Look at it! Look at it!" I cried, and pointed.

He drew back instantly, and was gone.

"Don't leave me! Mr. Plinlimmon—please don't leave me!" I made a leap for the window—halted helplessly—and fell back again from the body. I was alone again. But power to move had come back, and I must use it while it lasted. If I could gain the stairs now . . .

Stealthily, and more stealthily as the fear returned and grew, I reached the door, pushed it open, and looked out on the landing. But for a worm-eaten trunk and a line of old suits dangling from pegs around the wall, it was bare. The little light filtered through a cracked and discoloured window high up in the slope of the roof. The stairhead lay a short two yards from me, to be reached by one bold leap.

This, however, was not what I first saw; nay, how or when I saw it is a wonder still. For, across the landing, a door faced me; and, as I pushed mine open, this door had moved—was moving yet, as if to shut.

It did not quite shut. It came to a standstill when almost a foot ajar. Beyond it I could see yet other suits of clothes hanging: and among these lurked someone, watching me, perhaps, through the chink by the hinges. I was sure of it—was almost sure I had seen a hand on the edge of the door; a hand with a ring on one of its fingers, and just the edge, and no more, of a black cuff.

For perhaps five seconds I endured it, my hair lifting: then, with one sharp scream I dashed back into the room and across the corpse; struggled for a moment with the window-sash; and flinging it up, dropped out upon the leads.

Out there, in the restorative sunshine, my first thought was to crawl away as fast and as far as possible; to reach some hiding-place where I might lie down and pant, unpursued by the horrors of that house. The roofs on my right were flat; I staggered along them, halting at every few steps to lean a hand for support against one or other of the chimney-stacks, now growing warm in the sunshine.

From the far side of one, as I leaned clinging, a man sprang up, almost at my feet. It was Archie Plinlimmon again. He had been flattening himself against its shadow; and at first—so white and fierce was his face—I made sure he meant to hurl me over and on to the street below.

"What do you want? What have you seen?" Though he spoke fiercely, his teeth chattered. "Oh—it's you!" he exclaimed, recognising me through my soot.

"Mr. Plinlimmon—" I began.

"I didn't do it. I didn't—" He broke off. "For Heaven's sake, how are we to get down out of this?"

"There's no way on the street side," I answered, "unless—"

He took me up short. "The street? We can't go that way—it's as much as my neck's worth. Yours, too."

"Mr. Trapp's waiting for me," I answered stupidly.

"Who knows who isn't waiting?" he snapped. "We'll have to cut out of this." He pointed downward on the side away from the street. "I say, what happened? Who did it, eh?"

"I slipped in the chimney," I answered again. "He wanted his chimneys swept this morning. We knocked—Mr. Trapp and I—and no one answered: then we tried the door, and it opened. There was no one about, and no one in the street but Sergeant Letcher."

He began to shake. "Sergeant Letcher? What do you know about Sergeant Letcher?"

"Nothing, except that he was in the street—the man the bull chased, you know."

He was shaking yet. "I ought to kill you," said he. "But I didn't do it. Look here, show me a way down and I'll let you off. You're used to this work, ain't you?"

"How did you come up?" I asked, innocently enough.

"By the Lord, if you ask questions, I'll strangle you! You were in the room with—with it! I saw you: I'll swear I saw you. Get me down out of this, and hide—get on board some ship, and clear. See? If you breathe a word that you've seen me, I'll cut your heart out. You understand me?"

I hadn't a doubt then that he was guilty. His fear was too craven. "There's a warehouse at the end here," said I, and led the way to it. But when we reached it, its roof rose in a sharp slope from the low parapet guarding the leads where we stood.

"But I don't see," he objected; "and, anyway, I can't manage that."

I pointed to a louver skylight half-way up the roof. "We can prise that open, or break it. It's easy enough to reach," I assured him.

He was extraordinarily clumsy on the slates, but obeyed my instructions like a child. I wrenched at the wooden louvers.

"Got a knife?" I asked.

He produced one—an ugly-looking weapon, but clean. By good luck, we did not need it; for as he passed it to me, the louver at which I was tugging broke and came away in my hand. We easily loosened another and, squeezing through, dropped into the loft upon a sliding pile of grain.

The loft was dark enough; but a glimmer of light shone through the chinks of a door at the far end. Unbolting it, we looked down, from the height of thirty feet or so, into a deserted lane. Or rather I looked down: for while I fumbled with the bolts Master Archie had banged his head into something hard, and dropped, rubbing the hurt and cursing.

It proved to be the timber cross-piece of a derrick used for hoisting sacks of grain into the loft, working on an axle, and now swung inboard for the night. A double rope ran through the pulley at its end and had been hitched back over the iron winch which worked it. We pushed the derrick out over the lane and I manned the winch handle, while Master Archie caught hold of the hook and pulley at the end of the double line. Checking the handle with all my strength I lowered him as noiselessly as I could. As his feet touched the cobbles below he let go and, without a thought of my safety, made off down the lane.

I tugged the derrick inboard and recaptured the rope; cogged the winch, swung out, dropped hand over hand into the lane, and raced up it with all the terrors of the law at my heels.



CHAPTER VIII.

POOR TOM BOWLING.

Master Archibald's advice to me—to escape down to the water-side and conceal myself on shipboard—though acute enough in its way, took no account of certain difficulties none the less real because a soldier would naturally overlook them. To hide in a ship's hold you must first get on board of her unobserved, which in broad daylight is next to impossible. Moreover, to reach Cattewater I must either fetch a circuit through purlieus where every householder knew me and every urchin was a nodding acquaintance, or make a straight dash close by the spot where by this time Mr. Trapp would be getting anxious—if indeed Southside Street and the Barbican were not already resounding with the hue and cry. No: if friendly vessel were to receive and hide me, she lay far off, across the heart of the town, amid the shipping of the Dock. Yonder, too, Miss Plinlimmon resided.

If you think it absurd that my thoughts turned to her, whose weak arms could certainly shield no one from the clutches of the law, I beg you to remember my age, and that I had never known another protector. She, at least, would hear me and never doubt my innocence. She must hear, too, of Archie's danger.

That to reach her, even if I eluded pursuit to the Hospital gate, I must run the gauntlet of Mr. George—who would assuredly ask questions—and possibly of Mr. Scougall, scarcely occurred to me. To reach her—to sob out my story in her arms and hear her voice soothing me—this only I desired for the moment; and it seemed that if I could only hear her voice speaking, I might wake and feel these horrors dissolve like an evil dream. Meanwhile I ran.

But at the end of a lane leading into Treville Street, and as I leapt aside to avoid colliding with the hind-wheels of a hackney-coach drawn in there and at a standstill close by the kerb, to my unspeakable fright I felt myself gripped by the jacket-collar.

"Hi! Bring-to and 'vast kicking, young coal-dust! Where're ye bound, hey? Answer me, and take your black mop out of a gentleman's weskit."

"To—to Dock, sir," I stammered. "Let me go, please: I'm in a hurry."

My captor held me out at arm's length and eyed me. He was a sailor, and rigged out in his best shore-going clothes—tarpaulin hat, blue coat and waistcoat, and a broad leathern belt to hold up his duck trousers, on which my sooty head had left its mark. He grinned at me good-naturedly. I saw that he had been drinking.

"In a hurry? And what's your hurry about? Business?"

"Ye—es, sir."

"'Stonishing what spirit boys'll put into work nowadays! I've seen boys run for a leg o' mutton, and likewise I've seen 'em run when they've broken ship; but on the path o' duty, my sonny, you've the legs of any boy in my ex-perience. Well, for once, you'll put pleasure first. I'm bound for Dock or thereabouts myself, and under convoy." He waved his hand up the street, where twelve or fifteen hackney-coaches stood in line ahead.

"If you please, sir—"

He threw open the coach door. "Jump in. The frigate sets the rate o' sailing. That's Bill."

I hesitated, rebellious.

"That's Bill. Messmate o' mine on the Bedford, and afore that on the Vesuvius bomb. There, sonny—don't stand gaping at me like a stuck pig: I never expected ye to know him! And now the time's past, and ye'll go far afore finding a better. Bill Adams his name was; but Bill to me, always, and in all weathers." Here for a moment he became maudlin. "Paid off but three days agone, same as myself, and now—cut down like a flower! He's the corpse, ahead, in the first conveyance."

"Is this a funeral, sir?"

"Darn your eyes, don't it look like one? And after the expense I've been to!" He paused, eyed me solemnly, opened his mouth, and pointed down it with his forefinger. "Drink done it." His voice was impressive. "Steer you wide of the drink, my lad; or else drop down on it gradual. If drink must be your moorings, don't pick 'em up too rash. 'A boiled leg o' mutton first,' says I, persuasive; 'and turnips,' and got him to Symonds's boarding-house for the very purpose, Symonds being noted. And Symonds—I'll do him that justice—says the same. Symonds says—"

But at this point a young woman—and pretty, too, though daubed with paint—thrust her hat and head out of a window, three carriages away, and demanded to know what in the name of Moses we were waiting for.

"Signals, my dear. The flagship's forra'd; and keep your eye lifting that way, if you please. I'm main glad you fell in with us," he went on affably, turning to me; "because you round it up nicely. Barring the sharks in black weepers, you're the only mourning-card in the bunch, and I'll see you get a good position at the grave."

"Thank you, sir."

"Don't mention it. We're doin' our best. When poor Bill dropped down in Symonds's"—he jerked his thumb towards the boarding-house door—"Symonds himself was for turning everyone out. Very nice feeling he showed, I will say. 'Damn it, here's a go!' he says; 'and the man looked healthy enough for another ten year, with proper care!'—and went off at once to stop the fiddlers and put up the shutters. But, of course, it meant a loss to him, the place being full at the time; and I felt a sort of responsibility for having introduced Bill. So I went after him and says I, 'This is a most unforeseen occurrence.' 'Not a bit,' says he; 'accidents will happen.' I told him that the corpse had never been a wet blanket; it wasn't his nature; and I felt sure he wouldn't like the thought. 'If that's the case, says Symonds, 'I've a little room at the back where he'd go very comfortable—quite shut off, as you might say. We must send for the doctor, of course, and the crowner can sit on him to-morrow—that is, if you feel sure deceased wouldn' think it any disrespect.' 'Disrespect?' says I. 'You don't know Bill. Why, it's what he'd arsk for!' So there we carried him, and I sent for the undertaker same time as the doctor, and ordered it of oak; and next morning, down I tramped to Dock and chose out a grave, brick-lined, having heard him say often, 'Plymouth folk for wasting, but Dock folk for lasting.' I won't say but what, between whiles, we've been pretty lively at Symonds's; and I won't say—Hallo! Here's more luck! Your servant, sir!"

He stepped forward—leaving me shielded and half hidden by the coach door—and accosted a stranger walking briskly up the pavement towards us with a small valise in his hand; a gentlemanly person of about thirty-five or forty, in clerical suit and bands.

"Eh? Good-morning!" nodded the clergyman affably.

"Might I arsk where you're bound?" Then, after a pause, "My name's Jope, sir; Benjamin Jope, of the Bedford, seventy-four, bo'sun's mate—now paid off."

The clergyman, at first taken aback by the sudden question, recovered his smile. "And mine, sir, is Whitmore—the Reverend John Whitmore— bound just now in the direction of Dock. Can I serve you thereabouts?"

Mr. Jope waved his hand towards the coach door. "Jump inside! Oh, you needn't be ashamed to ride behind Bill!"

"But who is Bill?" The Rev. Mr. Whitmore advanced to the coach door like a man in two minds. "Ah, I see—a funeral!" he exclaimed as a mute advanced—assailed from each coach window, as he passed, with indecorous obloquy—to announce that the cortege was ready to start. For the last two minutes heads had been popping out at these windows—heads with dyed ringlets and heads with artificially coloured noses—and their owners demanding to know if Ben Jope meant to keep them there all day, if the corpse was expected to lead off the ball, and so on; and I, cowering by the coach step, had shrunk from their gaze as I flinched now under Mr. Whitmore's.

"Hallo!" said he, and gave me (as I thought) a searching look. "What's this? A chimney-sweep?"

"If your Reverence will not object?"

I turned my eyes away, but felt that this clergyman was studying me. "Not at all," said he quietly after a moment's pause. "Is he bound for Dock, too?"

"He said so."

"Eh? Then we'll see that he gets there. After you, youngster!" To my terror the words seemed charged with meaning, but I dared not look him in the face. I clambered in and dropped into a seat with my back to the driver. He placed himself opposite, nursing the valise on his knees. Ben Jope came last and slammed-to the door after him.

"Way-ho!" he shouted. "Easy canvas!" and with that plumped down beside me, and took off his tarpaulin hat, extracted a handkerchief, and carefully wiped his brow and the back of his neck.

"Well!" he sighed. "Bill's launched, anyhow."

"Shipmate?" asked the clergyman.

"Messmate," answered Mr. Jope; and, opening his mouth, pointed down it with his forefinger. "Not that a better fellow ever lived."

"I can quite believe it," said Mr. Whitmore sympathetically. He had a pleasant voice, but somehow I did not want to catch his eye. Instead I kept my gaze fastened upon the knees of his well-fitting pantaloons. No divine could have been more correctly attired, and yet there was a latent horsiness about his cut. I set him down for a sporting parson from the country, and wondered why he wore clothes so much superior to those of the Plymouth parsons known to me by sight.

"Just listen to that now!" exclaimed Mr. Jope. A cornet in one of the coaches ahead had struck up Tom Bowling, and before we reached the head of the street from coach after coach the funeral party broke into song:

"Here, a sheer hulk, lies poor Tom Bowling, The darling of his crew-ew; No more he'll hear the te—empest how—wow—ling, For death has broach'd him to. His form was of the—e ma—hanliest beau—eau—ty—"

"I wouldn't say that, quite," observed Mr. Jope pensively. "To begin with, he'd had the small-pox."

"De gustibus nil nisi bonum," Mr. Whitmore observed soothingly.

"What's that?"

"Latin."

"Wonderful! Would ye mind saying it again?"

The words were obligingly repeated.

"Wonderful! And what might be the meaning of it, making so bold?"

"It means 'Speak well of the dead.'"

"Well, we're doing of it, anyhow. Hark to 'em ahead there!"

The cortege, in fact, was attracting general attention. Folks on the pavement halted to watch and grin as we went by: one or two, catching sight of familiar faces within the coaches, waved their handkerchiefs or shouted back salutations: and as we crawled out of Old Town Street and past St. Andrew's Church a small crowd raised three cheers for us. And still above it the cornet blared and the mourners' voices rose uproarious:

"His friends were many and true-hearted, His Poll was kind and fair; And then he'd sing so blithe and jolly, Ah, many's the time and oft! But mirth is turned to melanchol—ol—y— For Tom is gone aloft."

"Bill couldn't sing a note," Mr. Jope murmured: "but as you say, sir—Would you oblige us again?" Again the Latin was repeated, and he swung round upon me. "Think of that, now! Be you a scholar, hey?—read, write and cipher? How would you spell 'sojer' for instance?"

The question knocked the wind out of me, and I felt my face whitening under the clergyman's eyes.

"Soldier—S.O.L.D.I.E.R," I managed to answer, but scarce above a whisper.

"Very good: now make a rhyme to it."

"I—please, sir, I don't know any rhymes."

"Well, that's honest, anyway. Now I'll tell you why I asked." He turned and addressed Mr. Whitmore. "I'm Cornish born, sir; from Saltash, up across the river. Afore I went to sea there was a maid livin' next door to us that wanted to marry me. Well, when she found I wasn't to be had, she picked up with a fellow from the Victualling Yard and married he, and came down to Dock to live. Man's name was Babbage, and they hadn't been married six months afore he tumbled into a brine-vat and was drowned. 'That's one narrow escape to me,' I said. Next news I had was a letter telling me she'd a boy born, and please would I stand godfather? I didn't like to say no, out of respect to her family. So I wrote home from Gibraltar that I was agreeable, only it must be done by proxy and she mustn't make it no precedent. That must be ten years back; and what with one thing and another I never set eyes 'pon mother or child till yesterday when— having to run down to Dock to order Bill's grave—I thought 'twould be neighbourly to drop 'em a visit. I found the boy growed to be a terrible plain child, about the size of this youngster. I didn't like the boy at all. So I says to his mother, 'I s'pose he's clever?'—for dang it! thinks I, he must be clever to make up for being so plain-featured as all that. 'Benjy'—she'd a-called him Benjamin after me—'Benjy's the cleverest child for his age that ever you see,' she says. 'Why,' says she, 'he'll pitch-to and make up a rhyme 'pon anything!' 'Can he so?' I says, pulling a great crown-piece out of my pocket (not that I liked the cut of his jib, but the woman had been hinting about my being his godfather): 'Now, my lad, let's see if you're so gifted as your mother makes out. There's a sojer now passin' the window. Make a rhyme 'pon he, and you shall have the money.' What d'ye think that ghastly boy did? 'Aw, that's easy,' he says—"

'Sojer, sojer, Diddy, diddy, dodger!'

"'Now hand me over the money,' he says. I could have slapped his ear."

Almost as he ended his simple story, the procession came to a halt: the strains of Tom Bowling changed into noisy—and, on the part of the ladies, very unladylike—expostulations. Mr. Jope started forward and leaned out of the window.

"I think," said the Rev. Mr. Whitmore, "we have arrived at the toll-gate."

"D'ye mean to say the sharks want to take toll on Bill?"

"Likely enough."

"On Bill? And him a-going to his long home? Here—hold hard!" Mr. Jope leapt out into the roadway and disappeared.

Upon us two, left alone in the coach, there fell a dreadful silence. Mr. Whitmore leaned forward and touched my knee; and I met his eye.

The face I looked into was thin and refined; clean-shaven and a trifle pale as if with the habit of study. A slight baldness by the temples gave the brow unusual height. His eyes I did not like at all: instead of soothing the terror in mine they seemed to be drinking it in and tasting it and calculating.

"I passed by the Barbican just now," said he; "and heard some inquiries about a small chimney-sweep."

He paused, as if waiting. But I had no speech in me.

"It was a very strange story they were telling—a very dreadful and strange story: still when I came upon you I saw, of course, it was incredible. Boys of your size"—he hesitated and left the sentence unfinished. "Still, you may have seen something—hey?"

Again I could not answer.

"At any rate," he went on, "I gave you the benefit of the doubt and resolved to warn you. It was a mistake to run away: but the mischief's done. How were you proposing to make off?"

"You—you won't give me up, sir?"

"No, for I think you must be innocent—of what they told me, at least. I feel so certain of it that, as you see, my conscience allows me to warn you. In the first place, avoid the Torpoint Ferry. It will without doubt be watched. I should make for the docks, hide until night, and try to stow myself on shipboard. Secondly"—he put out a hand and softly unfastened the coach door—"I am going to leave you. Our friend Mr. Jope is engaged, I see, in an altercation with the toll-keeper. He seems a good-natured fellow. The driver (it may help you to know) is drunk. Of course, if by ill-luck they trace me out, to question me, I shall be obliged to tell what I know. It amounts to very little: still—I have no wish to tell it. One word more: get a wash as soon as you can, and by some means acquire a clean suit of clothes. I may be then unable to swear to you: may be able to say that your face is as unfamiliar to me as it was—or as mine was to you—when Mr. Jope introduced us. Eh?" His look was piercing.

"Thank you, sir."

He picked up his valise, nodded, and after a swift glance up the street and around at the driver, to make sure that his head was turned, stepped briskly out upon the pavement and disappeared around the back of the coach.



CHAPTER IX.

SALTASH FERRY.

Apparently the hackney coachman was accustomed to difficulties with the toll-gate; for he rested on the box in profoundest slumber, recumbent, with his chin sunk on his chest; and only woke up—with a start which shook the vehicle—when a black hearse with plumes waving went rattling by us and back towards Plymouth.

A minute later Mr. Jope reappeared at the coach door, perspiring copiously, but triumphant.

"Oh, it's been heavinly!" he announced. "Why, hallo! Where's his Reverence?"

"He couldn't wait, sir. He—he preferred to walk."

"Eh? I didn't see 'en pass the toll-bar. That's a pity, too; for I wanted to take his opinion. Oh, my son, it's been heavinly! First of all I tried argyment and called the toll-man a son of a bitch; and then he fetched up a constable, and, as luck would have it, Nan—she's in the second coach—knew all about him; leastways, she talked as if she did. Well, the toll-man stuck to his card of charges and said he hadn't made the law, but it was threepence for everything on four wheels. 'Four wheels?' I said. 'Don't talk so weak! We brought nothing into the world and we can't take it out; but you'd take the breeches off a Highlander,' I says. 'He's on four wheels,' says the fellow, stubborn as ever. 'So was Elijah,' says I; 'but if you're so mighty particular, we'll try ye another way.' I paid off the crew of the hearse, gave the word to cast loose, and down we dumped poor Bill slap in the middle of the roadway. 'Now,' says I, 'we'll leave talking of wheels. What's your charge for 'en on the flat?' 'Eight bearers at a ha'penny makes fourpence,' he says. 'No, no, my son,' I says, 'there ain't a-going to be no bearers. He's happy enough if he stops here all night. You may charge 'en as a covered conveyance, as I see you've a right to; but the card says nothing about rate of drivin', except that it mustn't be reckless; and, you may lay to it, Bill won't be that.' At first the constable talked big about obstructing the traffic: but Nan was telling the crowd such terrible things about his past that for very shame he grew quiet, and the pair agreed that, by lashin' Bill a-top of the first coach, we might pass him through gratis as personal luggage—Why, what's the boy cryin' for? It's all over now; and a principle's a principle."

But still, as the squadron got under way again and moved on amid the cheers of the populace, I sat speechless, dry-eyed, shaken with dreadful sobs.

"Easy, my lad—don't start the timbers. In trouble—hey?"

I nodded.

"I thought as much, when I shipped ye. Sit up, and tell me; but first listen to this. All trouble's big to a boy, but one o' your age don't often do what's past mendin', if he takes it honest. That's comfort, hey? Very well: now haul up and inspect damages, and we'll see what's to be done."

"It's about a Jew, sir," I stammered at length.

He nodded. "Now we're making headway."

"He—he was murdered. I saw him—"

"Look here," said Mr. Jope, very grave but seemingly not astonished: "hadn't you best get under the seat?"

"I—I didn't do it, sir. Really, I didn't."

"I'm not suggestin' it," said Mr. Jope. "Still, all circumstances considered, I'd get under the seat."

"If you wish it, sir."

"I wouldn't go so far as to say that: but 'tis my advice." And under the seat I crawled obediently. "Now, then," said he, with an absurd air of one addressing vacancy; "if you didn' do it, who did?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Then where's your difficulty?"

"But I saw a man staring in at the window—it was upstairs in a room close to the roof; and afterwards I found him on the roof, and he was all of a tremble, and in two minds, so he said, about pitching me over. I showed him the way down. If you please, sir," I broke off, "you're not to tell anyone about this, whatever happens!"

"Eh? Why not?"

"Because—" I hesitated.

"Friend of yours?"

"Not a friend, sir. He's a young man, in the Army; and his aunt—she used to be very kind to me. I ran away at first because I was afraid: but they can't do anything to me, can they? I didn't find the—the—the—Mr. Rodriguez, I mean—until he was dead. But if they catch me I shall have to give evidence, and Mr. Archie—though I don't believe he did it—"

"Belay there!" commanded Mr. Jope! "I'm beginning to see things clearer, though I won't say 'tis altogether easy to follow ye yet. Far as I can make out, you're not a bad boy. You ran away because you were scared. Well, I don't blame ye for that. I never seen a dead Jew myself, though I often wanted to. You won't go back if you can help it, 'cos why? 'Cos you don't want to tell on a man: 'cos his aunt's a friend o' yourn: and 'cos you don't believe he's guilty. What's your name?"

"Harry, sir: Harry Revel."

"Well, then, my name's Ben Jope, and as such you'll call me. I'm sorry, in a way, that it rhymes with 'rope,' which it never struck me before in all these years, and wouldn't now but for thinkin' 'pon that ghastly godson o' mine and how much better I stomach ye. I promise nothing, mind: but if you'll keep quiet under that seat, I'll think it over."

Certainly, having made my confession, I felt easier in mind as I lay huddled under the seat, though it seemed to me that Mr. Jope took matters lightly. For the squadron ahead had resumed the singing of Tom Bowling and he sat humming a bar or two here and there with evident pleasure, and paused only to bow out of window and acknowledge the cheers of the passers-by.

At the end of five minutes, however, he spoke aloud again.

"The first thing," he announced, "is to stay where you are. Let me think, now—Who seen you? There's the parson: he's gone. And there's the jarvey: he's drunk as a lord. Anyone else?"

"There was one of the young ladies that looked out of window."

"True: then 'tis too risky. When the company gets out, you'll have to get out. Let the jarvey see you do it: the rest don't matter. You can pretend to walk with us a little way, then slip back and under the seat again—takin' care that this time the jarvey don't see you. That's easy enough, eh?"

I assured him I could manage it.

"Then leave the rest to me, and bide still. I got to think of Bill, now; and more by token here's the graveyard gate!"

He thrust the door open and motioned me to tumble out ahead of him. As the rest of the funeral guests alighted, he worked me very skilfully before him into the driver's view, having taken care to set the coach door wide on the off side.

"It's understood that you wait, all o' ye?" said Mr. Jope to the driver.

The man lifted a lazy eye. "Take your time," he said: "don't mind me. I hope "—he stiffened himself suddenly—"I knows a gentleman when I sees one."

Mr. Jope turned away and from that moment ignored my existence. The coffin was unlashed and lowered from the leading coach; the clergyman at the gate began to recite the sacred office, and the funeral train, reduced to decorum by his voice, followed him as he turned, and trooped along the path towards the mortuary chapel. I moved with the crowd to its porch, drew aside to make way for a lady in rouge and sprigged muslin, and slipped behind the chapel wall. The far end of it hid me from the view of the coaches, and from it a pretty direct path led to a gap in the hedge, and a stile. Reaching and crossing this, I found myself in a by-lane leading back into the high road. There were no houses with windows to overlook me. I sauntered around at leisure, took the line of coaches in the rear, and crawled back to my hiding-place—it astonished me with what ease. Every driver sat on his box, and every driver slumbered.

The mystery of this was resolved when—it seemed an hour later; but actually, I dare say, Bill's obsequies took but the normal twenty minutes or so—Mr. Jope shepherded his flock back through the gates and, red-eyed, addressed them while he distributed largess along the line of jarveys.

"I thank ye, friends," said he in a muffled voice which at first I attributed to emotion. "The fare home is paid to the foot of George Street—I arranged that with the jobmaster, and this here little gift is private, between me and the drivers, to drink Bill's health. And now I'll shake hands." Here followed sounds of coughing and choking, and he resumed in feeble gasping sentences, "Thank ye, my dear; I've brought up the two guineas, but you've a-made me swallow my quid o' baccy. Hows'ever, you meant it for the best. And that's what I had a mind to say to ye all." His voice grew firmer—"You're a pleasant lot, and we've spent the time very lively and sociable, and you done this here last service to Bill in a way that brings tears to my eyes. Still, if you won't mind my saying it, a little of ye lasts a long time, and I'm going home to live clean. So here's wishing all well, and good-bye!"

Not one of the party seemed to resent this dismissal. The women laughed hilariously and called him a darling. There was a smacking exchange of kisses; and the coaches, having been packed at length, started for home to the strains of the cornet and a chorus of cheers. Mr. Jope sprang in beside me, and leaning out of the farther window, waved his neckerchief for a while, then pensively readjusted it, and called to the driver—

"St. Budeaux!"

The driver, after a moment, turned heavily in his seat, and answered, "Nonsense!"

"I tell ye, I want to drive to St. Budeaux, by Saltash Ferry."

"And I tell you, 'Get out!' St. Budeaux? The idea!"

"Why, what's wrong with St. Budeaux?"

"Oh, I'm not goin' to argue with you," said the driver. "I'm goin' home."

And he began to turn his horse's head. Mr. Jope sprang out upon the roadway. The driver, with sudden and unexpected agility, dropped off—on the other side.

"Look here, it's grindin' the faces of the poor!" he pleaded, breathing hard.

"It will be," assented Mr. Jope grimly.

"I been up all night: at a ball."

"If it comes to that, so've I: at Symonds's."

"Mine was at Admiralty House," said the driver. "I wasn' dancin'."

"What about the horse?"

"The horse? the ho—Oh, I take your meanin'! The horse is all right: he's a fresh one. Poor I may be," he announced inconsecutively, "but I wouldn' live the life of one of them there women of fashion, not for a million of money." He ruminated for a moment. "Did I say a million?"

"You did."

"Well I don't wishaggerate. I don't, if you understand me, wish—to—exaggerate: so we'll put it at half a million."

"All right: jump up!"

To my astonishment, no less than to Mr. Jope's (who had scarcely time to skip back into the coach), the man scrambled up to his seat without more ado, flicked his whip, and began to urge the horse forward. At the end of five minutes or so, however, he pulled up just as abruptly.

"Eh?" Mr. Jope put forth his head. "Ah, I see—public-house!"

He alighted, and entered; returned with a pot of porter in one hand and a glass of brandy in the other; dexterously tipped half the brandy into the porter, and handed up the mixture. The driver took it down at one steady draught.

The pot and glass were returned and we jogged on again. We were now well beyond the outskirts of Stoke and between dusty hedges over which the honeysuckle trailed. Butterflies poised themselves and flickered beside us, and the sun, as it climbed, drew up from the land the fragrance of freshly mown hay and mingled it with the stuffy odour of the coach. By and by we halted again, by another roadside inn, and again Mr. Jope fetched forth and administered insidious drink.

"If this is going to last," said the charioteer dreamily, "may I have strength to see the end o't!"

I did not catch this prayer, but Mr. Jope reported it to me as he resumed his seat, with an ill-timed laugh. The fellow, who had been gathering up his reins, lurched round suddenly and gazed in through the glass front.

"You was sayin'?" he demanded.

"Nothing," answered Mr. Jope hastily. "I was talking to myself, that's all."

"The point is, Am I, or am I not, an objic of derision?"

"If you don't drive on this moment, I'll step around and punch your head."

"Tha's all right. Tha's right as ninepence. It's not much I arsk— only to have things clear." He drove on.

We halted at yet another public-house—I remember its name, the Half a Face—and must have journeyed a mile or so beyond it when the end came. We had locked wheels in the clumsiest fashion with a hay-wagon; and the wagoner, who had quartered to give us room and to spare, was pardonably wroth. Mr. Jope descended, pacified him, and stepped around to the back of the coach, the hinder axle of which, a moment later, I felt gently lifted beneath me and slewed clear of the obstruction.

"My word, mister, but you've a tidy strength!" exclaimed the wagoner.

"No more than you, my son—if so much: 'tain't the strength, but the application. That's 'Nelson's touch.' Ever heard of it?"

"I've heard of him, I should hope. Look y' here, mister, did you ever know him? Honour bright, now!"

"Friends, my son: dear, dear friends! And the gentleman 'pon the box, there, drunk some of the very rum he was brought home in. He's never recovered it."

"And to think of my meeting you!"

"Ay, 'tis a small world," agreed Mr. Jope cheerfully: "like a cook's galley, small and cosy and no time to chat in it. Now then, my slumb'ring ogre!"

The driver, who from the moment of the mishap had remained comatose, shook his reins feebly and we jogged forward. But this was his last effort. At the next sharp bend in the road he lurched suddenly, swayed for a moment, and toppled to earth with a thud. The horse came to a halt.

Mr. Jope was out in a moment. He glanced up and down the road.

"Tumble out, youngster! There's no one in sight."

"Is—is he hurt?"

"Blest if I know." He stooped over the prostrate body. "Hurt?" he asked, and after a moment reported, "No, I reckon not: talkin' in his sleep, more like—for the only word I can make out is 'Jezebel.' That don't help us much, do it?" He scanned the road again. "There's only one thing to do. I can't drive ye: I never steered yet with the tiller lines in front—it al'ays seemed to me un-Christian. We must take to the fields. I used to know these parts, and by the bearings we can't be half a mile above the ferry. Here, through that gate to the left!"

We left the man lying and his horse cropping the hedgerow a few paces ahead; and struck off to the left, down across a field of young corn interspersed with poppies. The broad estuary shone at our feet, with its beaches uncovered—for the tide was low—and across its crowded shipping I marked and recognised (for Mr. Trapp had often described them to me) a line of dismal prison-hulks, now disused, moored head to stern off a mudbank on the farther shore.

"Plain sailing, my lad," panted Mr. Jope, as the cornfield threw up its heat in our faces. "See, yonder's Saltash!" He pointed up the river to a small town which seemed to run toppling down a steep hill and spread itself like a landslip at the base. "I got a sister living there, if we can only fetch across; a very powerful woman; widowed, and sells fish."

We took an oblique line down the hillside, and descended, some two or three hundred yards below the ferry, upon a foreshore firm for the most part and strewn with flat stones, but melting into mud by the water's edge. A small trading ketch lay there, careened as the tide had left her; but at no great angle, thanks to her flat-bottomed build. A line of tattered flags, with no wind to stir them, led down from the truck of either mast, and as we drew near I called Mr. Jope's attention to an immense bunch of foxgloves and pink valerian on her bowsprit end.

"Looks like a wedding, don't it?" said he; and turning up his clean white trousers he strolled down to the water's edge for a closer look. "Scandalous," he added, examining her timbers.

"What's scandalous?"

He pointed with his finger. "Rotten as touch"; and he pensively drew out an enormous clasp-knife. "A man ought to be fined for treating human life so careless. See here!"

He drove the knife at a selected spot, and the blade sank in to the hilt.

From the interior, prompt on the stroke, arose a faint scream.



CHAPTER X.

I GO ON A HONEYMOON.

"Sure-ly I know that voice?" said Mr. Jope.

He drew out the knife reflectively. It relieved me to see that no blood dyed the blade.

"Oh, Mr. Jope, I was afraid you'd stabbed him!"

"'Tisn't a him, 'tis a her. I touched somebody up, and that's the truth."

"Ahoy there!" said a voice immediately overhead; and we looked up. A round-faced man was gazing down on us from the tilted bulwarks. "You might ha' given us notice," he grumbled.

"I knew 'twas soft, but not so soft as all that," Mr. Jope explained.

"Got such a thing as a scrap o' chalk about ye?"

"No."

The round-faced man felt in his pocket and tossed down a piece. "Mark a bit of a line round the place, will ye? I'll give it a lick of paint afore the tide rises. It's only right the owner should have it pointed out to him."

"Belong to these parts?" asked Mr. Jope affably, having drawn the required circle. "I don't seem to remember your face."

"No?" The man seemed to think this out at leisure. "I was married this morning," he said at length with an air of explanation.

"Wish ye joy. Saltash maid?"

"Widow. Name of Sarah Treleaven."

"Why that's my sister!" exclaimed Mr. Jope.

"Is it?" The round-faced man took the news without apparent surprise or emotion. "Well, I'm married to her, any way."

"Monstrous fine woman," Mr. Jope observed cheerfully.

"Ay; she's all that. It seems like a dream. You'd best step on board: the ladder's on t'other side."

As we passed under the vessel's stern I looked up and read her name— Glad Tidings, Port of Fowey.

"I've a-broken it to her," our host announced, meeting us at the top of the ladder. "She says you're to come down."

Down the companion we followed him accordingly and so into a small cabin occupied—or, let me rather say, filled—by the stoutest woman it has ever been my lot to meet. She reclined—in such a position as to display a pair of colossal feet, shoeless, clothed in thick worsted stockings—upon a locker on the starboard side: and no one, regarding her, could wonder that this also was the side towards which the vessel listed. Her broad recumbent back was supported by a pile of seamen's bags, almost as plethoric as herself and containing (if one might judge from a number of miscellaneous articles protruding from their distended mouths) her bridal outfit. Unprepared as she was for a second visitor in the form of a small chimney-sweep, she betrayed no astonishment; but after receiving her brother's kiss on either cheek bent a composed gaze on me, and so eyed me for perhaps half a minute. Her features were not uncomely.

"O.P.," she addressed her husband. "Ask him, Who's his friend?"

"Who's your friend?" asked the husband, turning to Mr. Jope.

"Chimney-sweep," said Mr. Jope; "leastways, so apprenticed, as I understand."

The pair gazed at me anew.

"I asked," said the woman at length, "because this is a poor place for chimbleys."

"He's in trouble," Mr. Jope explained; "in trouble—along o' killing a Jew."

"Oh no, Mr. Jope!" I cried. "I didn't—"

"Couldn't," interrupted his sister shortly, and fell into a brown study. "Constables after him?" she asked.

Mr. Jope nodded.

Her next utterance struck me as irrelevant, to say the least of it. "Ben, 'tis high time you followed O.P.'s example."

"Meaning?" queried Ben.

"O, Onesimus. P, Pengelly. Example, marriage. There's the widow Babbage, down to Dock: she always had a hankering for you. You're neglecting your privileges."

"Ever seen that boy of hers?" asked Ben in an aggrieved voice. "No, of course you haven't, or you wouldn't suggest it. And why marry me up to a widow?"

"O.P.," said the lady, "tell him you prefer it."

"I prefer it," said Mr. Pengelly.

"Oh," explained Ben, "present company always excepted, o' course. I wish you joy."

"Thank ye," the lady answered graciously. "You shall drink the same by and by in a dish o' tea; which I reckon will suit ye best this morning," she added eyeing him. "O.P., put on the kettle."

Ben Jope winced and attempted to turn the subject. "What's your cargo, this trip?" he asked cheerfully.

"I didn't write," she went on, ignoring the question. "O.P. took me so sudden."

"Oh, Sarah!" Mr. Pengelly expostulated.

"You did; you know you did, you rogue!"

Mr. Pengelly took her amorous glance and turned to us. "It seems like a dream," he said, and went out with the kettle.

The lady resumed her business-like air. "We sail for Looe next tide. It's queer now, your turning up like this."

"Providential. I came o' purpose, though, to look ye up."

"I might ha' been a limpet."

"Eh?"

"By the way you prised at me with that knife o' yours. And you call it Providence."

Ben grinned. "Providence or no, you'll get this lad out o' the way, Sarah?"

"H'm?" She considered me. "I can't take him home to Looe."

"Why not?"

"Folks would talk," she said modestly.

"'Od rabbit it!" exclaimed Ben. "He's ten year old; and you were saying just now that the man took ye sudden!"

"Well, I'll see what can be done: but on conditions."

"Conditions?"

"Ay, we'll talk that over while he's cleanin' himself." She lifted her voice and called, "O.P., is that water warm?"

"Middlin'," came O.P.'s voice from a small cuddy outside.

"Then see to the child and wash him. Put him inside your foul-weather suit for the time, and then take his clothes out on the beach and burn 'em. That seam'll be the better for a lick of pitch afore the tide rises, and you can use the same fire for the caldron."

So she dismissed me; and in the cuddy, having washed myself clean of soot, I was helped by Mr. Pengelly into a pair of trousers which reached to my neck, and a seaman's guernsey, which descended to my knees. My stockings I soaped, scrubbed, wrung out and laid across the companion rail to dry: but, as it turned out, I was never to use them or my shoes again. My sweep's jumper, waistcoat, and breeches Mr. Pengelly carried off, to burn them.

All this while Ben Jope and his sister had been talking earnestly: I had heard at intervals the murmur of their voices through the partition; but no distinct words save once, when Mrs. Pengelly called out to her husband to keep an eye along the beach and report the appearance of constables. Now so ludicrous was the figure I cut in my borrowed clothes that on returning to the cabin I expected to be welcomed with laughter. To my surprise, Ben Jope arose at once with a serious face and shook me by the hand.

"Good-bye, my lad," he said. "She makes it a condition."

"You're not leaving me, Mr. Jope!"

"Worse'n that. I'm a-goin to marry the widow Babbage."

"Oh, ma'am!" I appealed.

"It'll do him good," said Mrs. Pengelly.

"I honestly think, Sarah," poor Ben protested, "that just now you're setting too much store by wedlock altogether."

"It's my conditions with you; and you may take it or leave it, Ben." His sister was adamant, and he turned ruefully to go.

"And you're doing this for me, Mr. Jope!" I caught his hand.

"Don't 'ee mention it. Blast the child!" He crammed his tarpaulin hat on his head. "I don't mean you, my lad, but t'other one. If he makes up a rhyme 'pon me, I'll—I'll—"

Speech failed him. He wrung my hand, staggered up the companion, and was gone.

"It'll be the making of him," said Mrs. Pengelly with composure. "I don't like the woman myself, but a better manager you wouldn't meet."

She remembered presently that Ben had departed without his promised dish of tea, and this seemed to suggest to her that the time had arrived for preparing a meal. With singular dexterity and almost without shifting her posture she slipped one of the seamen's bags from somewhere beneath her shoulders, drew it upon her lap, and produced a miscellaneous feast—a cheek of pork, a loaf, a saffron cake; a covered jar which, being opened, diffused the fragrance of marinated pilchards; a bagful of periwinkles, a bunch of enormous radishes, a dish of cream wrapped about in cabbage-leaves, a basket of raspberries similarly wrapped; finally, two bottles of stout.

"To my mind," she explained as she set these forth on the table beside her, each accurately in its place, and with such economy of exertion that only one hand and wrist seemed to be moving, "for my part, I think a widow-woman should be married quiet. I don't know what your opinion may be?"

I thought it wise to say that her opinion was also mine.

"It took place at eight o'clock this morning." She disengaged a pin from the front of her bodice, extracted a periwinkle from its shell, ate it, sighed, and said, "It seems years already. I gathered these myself, so you may trust 'em." She disengaged another pin and handed it to me. "We meant to be alone, but there's plenty for three. Now you're here, you'll have to give a toast—or a sentiment," she added. She made this demand in form when O.P. appeared, smelling strongly of pitch, and taking his seat on the locker opposite, helped himself to marinated pilchards.

"But I don't know any sentiments, ma'am."

"Nonsense. Didn't they learn you any poetry at school?"

Most happily I bethought me of Miss Plinlimmon's verses in my Testament—now alas! left in the Trapps' cottage and lost to me; and recited them as bravely as I could.

"Ah!" sighed Mrs. Pengelly, "there's many a true word spoken in jest. 'Where shall we be in ten years' time?' Where indeed?"

"Here," her husband cheerfully suggested, with his mouth full.

"Hush, O.P.! You never buried a first."

She demanded more, and I gave her Wolfe's last words before Quebec (signed by him in Miss Plinlimmon's Album).

"'They run!'—but who? 'The Frenchmen!' Such Was the report conveyed to the dying hero. 'Thank Heaven!' he cried, 'I thought as much.' In Canada the glass is frequently below zero."

On hearing the author's name and my description of Miss Plinlimmon, she fell into deep thought.

"I suppose, now, she'd look higher than Ben?"

I told her that, so far as I knew, Miss Plinlimmon had no desire to marry.

"She'd look higher, with her gifts, you may take my word for it." But a furrow lingered for some time on Mrs. Pengelly's brow, and (I think) a doubt in her mind that she had been too precipitate.

The meal over, she composed herself to slumber; and Mr. Pengelly and I spent the afternoon together on deck, where he smoked many pipes while I scanned the shore for signs of pursuit. But no: the tide rose and still the foreshore remained deserted. Above us the ferry plied lazily, and at whiles I could hear the voices of the passengers. Nothing, even to my strained ears, spoke of excitement; and yet, in the great town beyond the hill, murder had been done and men were searching for me. So the day dragged by.

Towards evening, as the vessel beneath us fleeted and the deck resumed its level, Mr. Pengelly began to uncover the mainsail. I asked him if he expected any crew aboard? For surely, thought I, he could not work this ketch of forty tons or so single-handed.

He shook his head. "There was a boy, but I paid him off. Sarah takes the helm from this night forth. You wouldn't believe it, but she can swig upon a rope too: and as for pulling an oar—" He went on to tell me that she had been rowing a pair of paddles when his eye first lit on her: and I gathered that the courtship had been conducted on these waters under the gaze of Saltash, the male in one boat pursuing, the female eluding him in another, for long indomitable, but at length gracefully surrendering.

My handiness with the ropes, when I volunteered to help in hoisting sail, surprised and even perplexed him. "But I thought you was a chimney-sweeper?" he insisted. I told him then of my voyages with Mr. Trapp, yet without completely reassuring him. Hitherto he had taken me on my own warrant, and Ben's, without a trace of suspicion: but henceforth I caught him eyeing me furtively from time to time, and overheard him muttering as he went about his preparations.

As he had promised, when the time came for hauling up our small anchor, Mrs. Pengelly emerged from the companion hatch like a geni from a bottle. She bore two large hunches of saffron cake and handed one to each of us before moving aft to uncover the wheel.



CHAPTER XI.

FLIGHT.

The sails drew as we got the anchor on board; and by the time O.P. and I had done sluicing the hawser clean of the mud it brought up, we were working down the Hamoaze with a light and baffling wind, but carrying a strong tide under us. Evening fell with a warm yellow haze: the banks slipping past us grew dim and dimmer: here and there a light shone among the long-shore houses. I felt more confident, and no longer concealed myself as we tacked under the sterns of the great ships at anchor or put about when close alongside.

As we cleared Devil's Point and had our first glimpse of the grey line where night was fast closing down on open sea, I noted a certain relaxation in Mr. Pengelly, as if he too had been feeling the strain. He began to chat with me. The wind, he said, was backing and we might look for this spell of weather to break up before long. Once past the Rame we should be right as ninepence and might run down the coast on a soldier's wind: it would stiffen a bit out yonder unless he was mistaken. He pulled out his pipe and lit it. Aft loomed the bulk of Mrs. Pengelly at the wheel. Save for a call now and again to warn us that the helm was down, to put about, she steered in silence. And she steered admirably.

We had opened the lights of Cawsand and were heading in towards it on the port tack when, as O.P. smoked and chatted and I watched the spark of the Eddystone growing and dying, her voice reached us, low but distinct.

"There's a boat coming. Get below, boy!"

Sure enough as I scrambled for the hatchway in a flutter, someone hailed us out of the darkness.

"Ahoy, there!"

"Ahoy!" O.P. called back, after a moment, into the darkness.

"What's your name?"

"The Glad Tidings, of Looe, and thither bound. Who be you?"

"Water-guard. Is that you speaking, Mr. Pengelly?"

"Ay, sure. Anything the matter?"

"Seen such a thing as the body of a young chimney-sweep on your way down? Age, ten or thereabouts. There's one missing."

"You don't say so! Drowned?"

His wife having put about, Mr. Pengelly obligingly hauled a sheet or two to windward, and brought the Glad Tidings almost to a standstill, allowing the boat to come close alongside.

"Drowned?" he asked again.

"Worse than that," said the officer's voice (and it sounded dreadfully close); "there's been murder committed, and the child was in the house at the time. The belief is, he's been made away with."

"Save us all! Murder? Whereto?"

"On the Barbican—an old Jew there, called Rodriguez. Who's that you've got at the helm?"

"Missus."

"Never knew ye was married."

"Nor did I, till this mornin'."

"Eh? Wish ye luck, I'm sure; and you, ma'am, likewise!"

"Thank ye, Mr. Tucker," answered the lady. "The same to you and many of 'em—which by that I don't mean wives."

"Good Lord, is that you, Sally? Well, I'm jiggered! And I owe you ninepence for that last pair of flatfish you sold me!"

"Tenpence," said Mrs. Pengelly. "But I can trust a gentleman. Where d'ye say this here murder was committed?"

"Barbican."

"I don't wonder at anything happening there. They're a stinking lot. Why don't ye s'arch the shipping there and in Cattewater?"

"We've been s'arching all day. And now the constables are off towards Stoke—it seems a child answering all particulars was seen in that direction this morning."

"That don't look like being made away with."

"In a case like this," answered Mr. Tucker sagely, "as often as not there's wheels within wheels. Well, I won't detain ye. Good-night, friends!"

"Good-night!"

I heard the creak of thole-pins as the rowers gave way, and the wash of oars as the boat shot off into the dark. Mr. Pengelly sent me a low whistle and I crept forth.

"Hear what they said?" he asked.

"They—they didn't give much trouble."

"Depends what you call trouble." He seemed slightly hurt in his feelings, and added, with asperity and obvious truth, "Carry it off how you will, a honeymoon's a honeymoon, and a man doesn't expect to be interrupted with questions about a sweep's apprentice."

"Stand by!" cautioned the voice aft, low and firm as before. "By the sound of it they've stopped rowing."

"If they come on us again, we're done for. That Tucker's a fool, but I noticed one or two of the men muttering together."

"Sounds as if they were putting about. Can the boy swim?" asked Mrs. Pengelly anxiously.

"I'll bet he can't."

"But I can," said I. "If you'll put the helm down, ma'am, and hold in, I think she'll almost fetch Penlee Point. I don't want to get you into trouble."

We all listened. And sure enough the sound of oars was approaching again out of the darkness.

"Mr. Pengelly can lower me overside," I urged, "as soon as we're near shore. It's safest in every way."

"So best," she answered shortly, and again put the Glad Tidings about. I began to pluck off my clothes.

The boat was evidently watching us: for, dark as the evening had grown, almost as soon as our helm went down the sound of oars ceased astern—to begin again a few seconds later, but more gently, as if someone had given the order for silence. O.P. peered under the slack of the mainsail.

"There she is!" he muttered. "Tucker will be trying to force her alongside under our lee." He picked up and uncoiled a spare rope. "You'd best take hold o' this and let me slip ye over the starboard side, forra'd there, as she goes about. Bain't afeard, hey?"

"I'm not afraid of anything but being caught, sir."

"Sarah will take her in close: there's plenty water."

"O.P.," said the voice aft.

"My angel."

"Tell 'en he's a good boy, and I wouldn' mind having one like him."

"You're a good boy," said O.P., and covered the remainder of the message with a discreet cough. "Seems to me Tucker's holdin' off a bit," he added, peering again under the sail. "Wonder what his game is?"

But I was already stripped, and already the high land loomed over us. Down went the helm again, and "Now's your time," muttered O.P. as we scrambled forward to cast off sheets. Amid the flapping of her head sails as she hung for a moment or two in stays, I slipped overside and took the water easily while the black mass of her stern swung slowly round and covered me from view of the boat. Then, as the tall side began to gather way and slip by me, I cast a glance towards land and dived.

I came to the surface warily and trod water whilst I spied for the boat, which—as I reckoned—must be more than a gunshot distant. The sound of oars guided me, and I dived again in a terror. For she had not turned about to follow the ketch, but was heading almost directly towards me, as if to cut me off from the shore.

My small body was almost bursting when I rose for air and another look. The boat had not altered her course, and I gasped with a new hope. What if, after all, she were not pursuing me? I let my legs sink and trod water. No: I had not been spied. She was pointing straight for the shore. But what should take a long-boat, manned (as I made out) by a dark crowd of rowers and passengers, at this hour to this deserted spot? Why was she not putting-in for Cawsand, around the point? And did she carry the water-guard? Was this Tucker's boat after all, or another?

Still treading water, I heard her nose take the ground, and presently the feet of men shuffling, as they disembarked, over loose stones: then a low curse following on a slip and a splash. "Who's that talking?" a voice inquired, quick and angry. "Sergeant! Take that man's name." But apparently the sergeant could not discover him. The footfalls grew more regular and seemed to be mounting the cliff, along the base of which, perhaps a hundred yards from shore, the tide was now sweeping me. I gave myself to it and noiselessly, little by little working towards land, was borne out of hearing.

Another ten minutes and my feet touched bottom. I pulled myself out upon a weed-covered rock, and along it to a slate-strewn foreshore overhung by a low cliff of shale, grey and glimmering in the darkness. But even in the darkness a ridge of harder rock showed me a likely way. I remembered that the cliff hereabouts was of no great height and scalable in a score of places. Very cautiously, and sometimes sitting and straddling the ridge while my fingers sought a new grip, I mounted to the edge of a heathery down; and there, after pricking myself sorely among the furze-bushes that guarded it, found a passage through and cast myself at full length on the short turf.

For a while I lay and panted, flat on my back, staring up at the stars: for the wind had chopped about and was now drawing gently off shore, clearing the sky. But, though gentle, it had an edge of chill which by and by brought me to my feet again. Far out on the dark waters of the Sound glimmered the starboard light of the Glad Tidings, and it seemed to me that she was heading in for shore. Had the Pengellys too discovered that the boat was not the water-guard's? And was O.P. working the ketch back to give me a chance of rejoining her? Else why was she not slackening sheets and running? Vain hope! I suppose that the new slant of wind took some time in reaching her; for, just as I was preparing to creep back between the furze-whins and scramble down to the foreshore again, the green light was quenched. She had altered her helm and was clearing the Sound.

I dared not hail her. Indeed, had I risked it, the odds were against my voice carrying so far, to be recognised. And while I stood and searched the darkness into which she had disappeared, my ear caught again the muffled tramp of the soldiers, this time advancing towards me. I waited no longer, but started running for dear life up the shoulder of the down.

The swim and the chill breeze had numbed my legs and arms. After a few hundred yards, however, I felt life coming back to them, and I ran like a hare. I was stark naked, and here and there my feet struck a heather root pushed above the turf, or wounded themselves on low-lying sprouts of furze; but as my eyes grew used to the dark sward I learned to avoid these. So close the night hung around me that even on the sky-line I had no fear of being spied. I crossed the ridge and tore down the farther slope; stumbled through a muddy brook and mounted another hillside. My heart was drumming now, but terror held me to it—over this second ridge and downhill again.

I supposed myself but half-way down this slope, or only a little more, when in springing aside to avoid a low bush I missed footing altogether; went hurling down into night, dropped plumb upon another furze-bush—a withered one—and heard and felt it snap under me; struck the cliff-side, bruising my hip, and slid down on loose stones for another few yards. As I checked myself, sprawling, and came to a standstill, some of these stones rolled on and splashed into water far below.

For a minute or so, at full length on this treacherous bed, I could pluck up no heart to move. Then, inch by inch at first, I drew myself up to the broken bush and found beside it a flat ledge, smooth and grassy, which led inland and downwards. I think it must have been a sheep-track. I kept to it on hands and knees, and it brought me down to the head of a small cove where a faint line of briming showed the sea's edge rippling on a beach of flat grey stones.

My hip was hurting me, and I could run no farther. I groped along the base of the eastern cliff and crawled into a shallow cave close by a pile of seaweed which showed the high mark of the tide now receding. With daylight I might discover a better hiding-place. Meanwhile I snuggled down and drew a coverlet of seaweed over me for warmth.



CHAPTER XII.

I FALL AMONG SMUGGLERS.

I awoke to a most curious sensation. The night was still black and only the ridge of the cliff opposite showed, by the light of the many stars, its dull outline above; yet I felt that the whole beach had suddenly become crowded with people—that they were moving stealthily about me, whispering, picking their way among the loose stones, hunting me and yet hushing their voices as though themselves afraid.

At first, you may be sure—wakened as I was from sleep—I had no doubt but that this unseen band of folk was after me. All that followed my awakening passed so quickly that I cannot separate dreams now from guesses nor apprehensions from realities. I do remember, however, that, whereas the soldiers from whom I had run had been on foot, my first fears were of a pursuit by cavalrymen, and therefore it seems likely that some sound of horses' trampling must have set them in train: but, though I strained my ears, they detected nothing of the sort—only a subdued murmur, as of human voices, down by the water's edge, and now and again the cautious crunch of a footstep upon shingle. Even this I had not heard but for the extreme quiet on the sea under the off-shore wind.

Gradually, by the light of the stars, I separated from the surrounding shadows that of a whole mass of people inert and darkly crowded there: and then—almost as I guessed their business—the cliff above me shot up a flame; and their forms and their dismayed upturned faces stood out distinct in the glare of it.

"Loose the horses and clear!" yelled someone; and another voice deep and wrathful began to curse, but was drowned by a stampede of hoofs upon the shingle. Straight forth from the sea—or so it looked to me—some twenty or thirty naked horses, without rider, bit, or bridle, broke from the crowd and came plunging up the beach at a gallop. They were met by a roar from the cove-head, and with that a line of glittering helmets and cuirasses sprang out of the night and charged past me.

"Dragoons! Dragoons!"

As the yell reached me from the waterside and the men there scattered and ran, I saw the shock of the double charge—the flame overhead lighting up every detail of it. The riderless horses, though they opened and swerved, neither turned tail nor checked their pace, but heading suddenly towards the left wing of the troop went through it as water through a gate, the dragoons either vainly hacking at them with their sabres, or leaning from their saddles and as vainly attempting to grip the brutes. Grip there was none to be had. These were smugglers' horses, clipped to the skin, with houghed manes, and tails and bodies sleek with soft soap. Nor did the dragoons waste more trouble upon them, but charged forward and down upon the crowd at the water's edge.

And as they charged I saw—but could not believe—that on a sudden the crowd had vanished. A moment before they had been jostling, shouting, cursing. They were gone now like ghosts. The light still flared overhead. It showed no boat beyond the cove—only the troopers reaching right across it in an irregular line, as each man had been able to check his horse—the most of them on the verge of the shingle, but many floundering girth-deep, and one or two even swimming. The Riding Officer, who had followed them, was bawling and pointing with his whip towards the cliff—at what I could not tell.

I had no time to wonder: for an unholy din broke out, on the same instant, at the head of the beach. A couple of the smugglers' horses had been hurled over by the dragoons' impact, and lay, hurt beyond recovery, lashing out across the shingle with their heels. A third had gone down under a sabre-cut, but had staggered up and was lobbing after his comrades at a painful canter. They had traversed the heavy shingle, reached the harder stones at the cove's head and were sailing away at stretched gallop when a volley rang out from the shadow of the cliff there, and the scream of more than one mingled with fresh shouting. At that moment, and just before the flame above me sank and died almost as swiftly as it had first shot up, a soldier—not a dragoon, but a man in red coat and white breeches—ran forward and sprang at the girth of the wounded horse, which had stumbled again. He did the wise thing—for a single girth was these horses' only harness: but whether he caught it or not I could not tell. Ten or a dozen soldiers followed, to help him. And, the next instant, total darkness came down on the scene like a shutter.

It did not last long. The red-coats, it turned out, had brought lanterns, and now, at a shouted order from their commanding officer answering the call of the dragoon officer below, began to light them. They meant, I doubted not, to make a strict search of the cliffs; and, if they did—my cave being but a shallow one—there was no hope for me. But just then a dismounted trooper came running up the beach, his scabbard scraping the shingle as he went by: and his first words explained the mystery of the crowd's disappearance.

"Where's your officer commanding?" he panted. "The devils have got away into the next cove through a kind of hole in the cliff—a kind of archway so far as we make out. They've blocked it with stones and posted three-four men there, threatening sudden death. By their own account they're armed. Major Dilke's holding them to parley, and wants the loan of a lantern while you, sir, march your men round and take the gang in the rear. They reckon they've none but us to deal with."

The infantry officer grunted that he understood, sent the trooper back with a lantern, and quietly formed up and marched off his company. From my hiding-place I caught scraps of the parley at the lower end of the beach—or rather of Major Dilke's share in it; for the smugglers answered him through a tunnel, and I could only hear their voices mumbling in response to the threats which he flung forth on the wide night. He was in no sweet temper, having been cheated of a rich haul: for the flare had, of course, warned away the expected boat, and I supposed that some of the red-coats had been dispatched at once to search the headland for the man who lit it. Revenge was now the Major's game, and, by his tune, he meant to have it.

But while I lay listening, a stone trickled from the cliff overhead and plumped softly upon the seaweed at the mouth of my cave. It was followed by a rush of small gravel (had the Major not, at the moment, been declaiming at his loudest, his men must surely have heard it): and this again by the plumb fall of a heavy body which still lay for a full five seconds after alighting, and then emitted a groan so eloquent that it raised the roots of my hair.

I held my breath. More seconds passed, and the body groaned again, still more dolefully.

We were within three yards of one another; and, friend or foe, if he continued to lie and groan like this for long, flesh and blood could not stand it.

"Are you hurt?" I summoned up voice to ask.

"The devil!" I had feared that he would scream. But he sat up— I saw his shoulders fill the mouth of the cave between me and the starlight. By his attitude he was peering at me through the darkness. "Who are you?"

"If you please, sir, I'm a boy."

"Glad to hear it. I took you at first for one of those cursed soldiers. Hiding, eh?"

"Yes, sir."

"So am I: but this is a mighty poor place for it. They may be here any moment with their lanterns: we had better cut across while everything's dark. Gad!" he said, throwing his head back as if to stare upwards, "I must have dropped twenty feet. Wonder if I've broken anything?" He stood up, and appeared to be feeling his limbs carefully. "Sound as a bell!" he announced. "Come along, youngster: we'll get out of this first and talk afterwards."

He put out a hand, seeking for mine; but, missing it, touched my ribs with his open palm and drew it away sharply.

"Good Lord, the boy's naked!"

"I've been swimming," said I.

"All right. Get out of this first and talk afterwards, that's the order. There's a rug in my tilbury, if we can only reach it. Now then, follow me close—and gently over the shingle!"

Like shadows we stole forth and across the cove. No one spied us, and, thanks perhaps to Major Dilke's sustained oratory, no one heard.

"There's a track hereabouts," my new friend whispered as we gained the farther cliff. "This looks like it—no—yes, here it is! Close after me, sonny, and up we go. Surely, 'tis Robinson Crusoe and man Friday with a touch of something else thrown in—can't think what, for the moment, unless 'tis the scaling of Plataea. Ever read Thucydides?"

"No, sir."

"He's a nigger. He floored me at Brasenose: but I bear the old cock no malice. Now you wouldn't think I was a University man, eh?"

"No, sir." I had not the least notion of his meaning.

"I am, though; and, what's more, I'm a Justice of the Peace and Deputy-Lieutenant for the county of Cornwall. Ever heard of Jack Rogers of Brynn?"

Once more I had to answer "No, sir."

"Then, excuse me, but where in thunder do you come from?" He halted and confronted me in the path. This was a facer, for the words "Justice of the Peace" had already set me quaking.

"If you please, sir, I'd rather not tell."

"No, I dare say not," he replied magisterially. "It's my fate to get into these false positions. Now there was Josh Truscott of Blowinghouse—Justice of the Peace and owned two thousand acres—what you might call a neat little property. He never allowed it to interfere, and yet somehow he carried it off. Do I make myself plain?"

"Not very, sir."

"Well, for instance, one day he was expecting company. There was a fountain in the middle of the lawn at Blowinghouse, and a statue of Hercules that his old father had brought home from Italy and planted in the middle of it. Josh couldn't bear that statue—said the muscles were all wrong. So, if you please, he takes it down, dresses himself in nothing at all—same as you might be, bare as my palm—and a Justice of the Peace, mind you—and stands himself in the middle of the fountain, with all the guests arriving. Not an easy thing to pass off, and it caused a scandal: but folks didn't seem to mind. 'It was Truscott's way,' they said: 'after all, he comes of a clever family, and we hope his son will be better.' A man wants character to carry off a thing like that."

I agreed that character must have been Mr. Truscott's secret.

"Now I couldn't do that for the life of me," Mr. Rogers sighed, and chuckled over another reminiscence. "Josh had a shindy once with a groom. The fellow asked for a rise in wages. 'You couldn't have said anything more hurtful to my feelings,' Josh told him, and knocked him down. There was a hole in one of his orchards where they'd been rooting up an old apple-tree. He put the fellow in that, tilled him up to his neck in earth, and kept him there till he apologised. Not at all an easy thing for a Justice of the Peace to pass off: but, bless you, folks said that he came of a clever county family, and hoped his son would be better. The fellow didn't even bring an action." Mr. Rogers broke off suddenly, and seemed to meditate a new train of thought. "Hang it!" he exclaimed. "I believe 'tis a hundred pounds. I must look it up when I get back."

"What is a hundred pounds, sir?" I asked.

"Penalty for showing a coast-light without authority. Lydia laid me ten pounds I hadn't the pluck, though; and that'll bring it down to ninety at the worst. She'd a small fortune in this trip, too, which she stood to lose: but, as it turns out, I've saved that for her. Oh, she's a treasure!"

"Did you light the flare?" I began to see that I had fallen in with an original, and that he might be humoured.

"Eh?—to be sure I did! 'Slocked away the man in charge by mimicking Pascoe's voice—he's the freighter, and talks like a man with no roof to his mouth. I'm a pretty good mimic, though I say it. Nothing easier, after that. You see, Lydia had laid me ten pounds that as a Justice of the Peace I hadn't wit nor pluck to spoil her next run; honestly, that is. She knows I wouldn't blow on her for worlds. Oh, we understand one another! Now you and I'll go off and call on her, and hear what she says about it. For in a way I've won, and in a way I've not. I stopped the run, but also I've saved the cargo for her: for the devil a notion had I that the soldiers had wind of it; and, but for the flare, the boats would have run in and lost every tub. Here we are, my lad!"

We had climbed the cliff and were crossing a field of stubble grass, very painful to my feet. I saw the shadow of a low hedge in front, but these words of Mr. Rogers conveyed nothing to me. "Soh, soh, my girl!" he called softly, advancing towards the shadow: and at first I supposed him to be addressing the mysterious Lydia. But following I saw him smoothing the neck of a small mare tethered beside the hedge, and the next moment had almost blundered against a light two-wheeled carriage resting on its shafts a few yards away.

Mr. Rogers whispered to me to lift the shafts. "And be quiet about it: there's a road t'other side of the hedge. Soh, my girl—sweetly, sweetly!" He backed the mare between the shafts, harnessed her, and led her along to a gate opening on the road.

"Jump up, my lad," he commanded, as he steered the tilbury through; and up I jumped. "There's a rug somewhere by your feet, and Lydia'll do the rest for you. Cl'k, my darling!"

Away we bowled.



CHAPTER XIII.

THE MAN IN THE VERANDAH.

The mare settled down to a beautiful stride and we spun along smoothly over a road which, for a coast road, must have been well laid, or Mr. Rogers's tilbury was hung on exceptionally good springs. We were travelling inland, for the wind blew in our faces, and I huddled myself up from it in the rug—on which a dew had fallen, making it damp and sticky. For two miles or so we must have held on at this pace without exchanging a word, meeting neither vehicle nor pedestrian in all that distance, nor passing any; and so came to a sign-post and swerved by it into a broader road, which ran level for maybe half a mile and then began to climb. Here Mr. Rogers eased down the mare and handed me the reins, bidding me hold them while he lit a cigar.

"We're safe enough now," said he, pulling out a pocket tinder-box: "and while I'm about it we'd better light the lamps." He slipped them from their sockets and lit the pair cleverly from the same brimstone match. "The Highflier's due about this time," he explained; "and Russell's Wagon 's another nasty thing to hit in the dark. We're on the main road, you know." Before refixing the lamp beside him, he held it up for a good stare at me, and grinned. "Well, you're a nice guest for a spinster at this hour, I must say! But there's no shyness about Lydia."

"Is she—is this Miss Lydia unmarried?" I made bold to ask.

"Lydia Belcher 's a woman in a thousand. There's no better fellow living, and I've known worse ladies. Yes, she's unmarried."

He took the reins from me and the mare quickened her pace. After sucking at his cigar for a while he chuckled aloud. "She's to be seen to be believed: past forty and wears top-boots. But she was a beauty in her day. Her mother's looks were famous—she was daughter to one of the Earl's cottagers, on the edge of the moors"—here Mr. Rogers jerked his thumb significantly, but in what direction the night hid from me: "married old Sam Belcher, one of his lordship's keepers, a fellow not fit to black her boots; and had this one child, Lydia. This was just about the time of the Earl's own marriage. Folks talked, of course: and sure enough, when the Earl came to die, 'twas found he'd left Lydia a thousand a year in the funds. That's the story: and Lydia—well she's Lydia. Couldn't marry where she would, I suppose, and wouldn't where she could; though they do say Whitmore 's trimming sail for her."

"Whitmore?" I echoed.

"Ay, the curate: monstrous clever fellow, and a sportsman too: Trinity College Dublin man. Don't happen to know him, do you?"

"Is he a thin-faced gentleman, very neatly dressed? Oh, but it can't be the gentleman I mean, sir! The one I mean has a slow way of speaking, and the hair seems gone on each side of his forehead—"

"That's Whitmore, to a T. So you know him? Well, you'll meet him at Lydia's, I shouldn't wonder. He's there most nights."

"If you please, sir, will you set me down? I can shift for myself somehow—indeed I can! I promised—that is, I mean, Mr. Whitmore won't like it if—if—"

While I stammered on, Mr. Rogers pulled up the mare, quartering at the same time to make room for the mail-coach as it thundered up the road from westward and swept by at the gallop, with lamps flashing and bits and swingles shaken in chorus.

"Look here, what's the matter?" he demanded. "Why don't you want to meet Whitmore?" Then as I would not answer but continued to entreat him, "There's something deuced fishy about you. Here I find you, stark naked, hiding from the soldiers: yet you can't be one of the 'trade,' for you don't know the country or the folks living hereabouts—only Whitmore: and Whitmore you won't meet, and your name you won't tell, nor where you come from—only that you've been swimming. 'Swimming,' good Lord! You didn't swim from France, I take it." He flicked his whip and fell into a muse. "And I'm a Justice of the Peace, and the Lord knows what I'm compounding with." He mused again. "Tell you what I'll do," he exclaimed; "I'll take you up to Lydia's as I promised. If Whitmore's there, you shan't meet him if you don't want to: and if the house is full, I'll drop you in the shrubbery with the rug, and get them to break up early. Only I must have your solemn davey that you'll stay there and not quit until I give you leave. Eh?"

I gave that promise.

"Very well. I'll tip the wink to Lydia, and when we've cleared the company, we'll have you in and get the rights of this. Oh, you may trust Lydia!"

As he said this we were passing a house the long whitewashed front of which abutted glimmering on the road. A light shone behind the blind of one lower window and showed through a chink under the door. "The Major 's sitting up late," observed Mr. Rogers, and again flicked up the mare.

Two minutes later he pulled the left rein and we swung through an open gateway and were rolling over soft gravel. Tall bushes of laurel on either hand glinted back the lights of the tilbury, and presently around a sweep of the drive I saw a window shining. Mr. Rogers pulled up once more.

"Jump out and take the path to the left. It'll bring you out almost facing the front door. Wait among the laurels there."

I climbed down and drew my rug about me as he drove on and I heard the tilbury's wheels come to a halt on the gravel before the house. Then, following the path which wound about a small shrubbery, I came to the edge of the gravel sweep before the porch just as a groom took the mare and cart from him and led them around to the left, towards the stables. I saw this distinctly, for on the right of the porch, where there ran a pretty deep verandah, each window on the ground floor was lit and flung its light across the gravel to the laurel behind which I crouched. There were in all five windows; of which three seemed to belong to an empty room, and two to another filled with people. The windows of this one stood wide open, and the racket within was prodigious. Also the company seemed to consist entirely of men. But what surprised me most was to see that the tables at which these guests drank and supped—as the clatter of knives and plates told me, and the shouting of toasts—were drawn up in a semicircle about a tall bed-canopy reaching almost to the ceiling in the far right-hand corner. The bed itself was hidden from me by the broad backs of two sportsmen seated in line with it and nursing a bottle apiece under their chairs.

Now while I wondered, Mr. Jack Rogers passed briskly through the room with the closed windows towards this chamber of revelry, preceded by an elderly woman with a smoking dish in her hands. I could not see the doorway between the two rooms; but the company announced his appearance with a shout, and several guests pushing back their chairs and rising to welcome him, in the same instant were disclosed to me, first, the pale face of the Rev. Mr. Whitmore under a sporting print by the wall opposite, and next, reclining in the bed, the most extraordinary figure of a woman.

So much of her as appeared above the bedclothes was arrayed in an orange-coloured dressing-gown and a night-cap the frills of which towered over a face remarkable in many ways, but chiefly for its broad masculine forehead and the firm outline of its jaw and chin. Indeed, I could hardly believe that the face belonged to a woman. A slight darkening of the upper lip even suggested a moustache, but on a second look I set this down to the shadow of the bed-canopy.

A round table stood at her elbow, with a bottle and plate upon it: and in one hand she lifted a rummer to Mr. Rogers's health, crooking back the spoon in it with her forefinger as she drank, that it might not incommode her aquiline nose.

"Good health, Jack, and sit you down!" she hailed him, her voice ringing above the others like a bell. "Tripe and onions it is, and Plymouth gin—the usual fare: and while you're helping yourself, tell me—do I owe you ten pounds or no?"

"That depends," Mr. Rogers answered, searching about for a clean plate and seating himself amid the hush of the company. "All the horses back?"

"Five of 'em. They came in together, nigh on an hour ago, and not a tub between 'em. The roan's missing."

"Maybe the red-coats have him," said Mr. Rogers, holding out his tumbler. "Here, pass the kettle, somebody!"

"Red-coats?" she cried sharply. "You don't tell me—" But the sentence was drowned by a new and (to me) very horrible noise—the furious barking of dogs from the stables or kennels in the rear of the house. Here was a new danger: and I liked it so little—the prospect of being bayed naked through those pitch-dark shrubberies by a pack of hounds—that I broke from my covert of laurel, hurriedly skirted the broad patch of light on the carriage sweep, and plumped down close to the windows, behind a bush of mock-orange at the end of the verandah, whence a couple of leaps would land me within it among Miss Belcher's guests. And I felt that even Mr. Whitmore was less formidable than Miss Belcher's dogs.

Their barking died down after a minute or so, and the company, two or three of whom had started to their feet, seemed to be reassured and began to call upon Jack Rogers for his explanation. It now turned out that, quite unintentionally, I had so posted myself as to hear every word spoken; and, I regret to say, was deep in Mr. Rogers's story—from which he considerately omitted all mention of me—when my eye caught a movement among the shadows at the far end of the verandah.

A man was stealing along it and towards me, close by the house wall.

He reached the first of the lighted windows, and peeped warily round its angle. This room, as I have said, was empty: but while he assured himself of this, the light rested on his face, and through the branches of the mock-orange bush I saw his features distinctly. It was Sergeant Letcher.

He wore his red uniform and white pantaloons, but had slipped off his boots and—as I saw when he rapidly passed the next two panels of light—was carrying them in his hand. Reaching the first of the open windows, he stood for a while in the shade beside it, listening; and then, to my astonishment, turned and stole back by the way he had come. I watched him till he disappeared in the darkness beyond the house-porch.

Meanwhile Miss Belcher had been calling to clear away the supper and set the tables for cards.

"Nonsense, Lydia!" Mr. Rogers objected. "It's a good one-in-the-morning, and the company tired. Where's the sense, too, of keeping the place ablaze on a night like this, with Gauger Rosewarne scouring the country, and the dragoons behind him, and all in the worst possible tempers?"

"My little Magistrate," Miss Belcher retorted, "there's naught to hinder your trotting home to bed if you're timorous. Jim's on his way to the moor by this time with the rest of the horses: 'twas at his starting the dogs gave tongue just now, and I'll have to teach them better manners. As for the roan, if he's hurt or Rosewarne happens on him, there's evidence that I sold him to a gipsy three weeks back, at St. Germans fair. Here, Bathsheba, take the keys of my bureau upstairs; you'll find some odd notes in the left-hand drawer by the fire-place. Bring Mr. Rogers down his ten pounds and let him go. We'll not compromise a Justice of the Peace if we can help it."

"Don't play the fool, Lydia," growled Mr. Rogers, and added ingenuously, "The fact is, I wanted a word with you alone."

"Oh, you scandalous man! And me tucked between the sheets!" she protested, while the company haw-haw'd. "You'll have to put up with some more innocent amusement, my dear. There's a badger somewhere round at the back, in a barrel: we'll have him in with the dogs— unless you prefer a quiet round with the cards."

"Oh, damn the badger at this hour!" swore Mr. Rogers. "Cards are quiet at any rate. Here, Raby—Penrose—Tregaskis—which of you'll cut in? Whitmore—you'll take a hand, won't you?"

"The Parson's tired to-night, and with better excuse than you. He's ridden down from Plymouth."

"Hallo, Whitmore—what were you doing in Plymouth?"

Mr. Whitmore ignored the question. "I'm ready for a hand, Miss Belcher," he announced quietly: "only let it be something quiet—a rubber for choice."

"Half-guinea points?" asked somebody.

"Yes, if you will."

I heard them settle to cards, and their voices sink to a murmur. Now and again a few coins clinked, and one of the guests yawned.

"You're as melancholy as gib-cats," announced Miss Belcher. "The next that yawns, I'll send him out to fetch in that badger. Tell us a story, somebody."

"I heard the beginning of a queer one," said Mr. Whitmore in his deliberate voice. "The folks were discussing it at Torpoint Ferry as I crossed. There's, been a murder at Plymouth, either last night or this morning."

"A murder? Who's the victim?"

"An old Jew, living on the Barbican or thereabouts. My deal, is it not?"

"What's his name?"

"His name?" Mr. Whitmore seemed to be considering. "Wait a moment, or I shall misdeal." After a pause, he said, "A Spanish-sounding one—Rodriguez, I think. They were all full of it at the Ferry."

"What! Old Ike Rodriguez? Why, he was down in these parts buying up guineas the other day!" exclaimed Mr. Rogers.

"Was he?"

"Why, hang it all, Whitmore," said a guest, "you know he was! More by token I pointed him out to you myself on Looe hill."

"Was that the man?"

"Of course it was. Don't you remember admiring his face? It put you in mind of Caiaphas—those were your very words, and at the moment I didn't clearly recollect who Caiaphas was. It can't be three weeks since."

"Three weeks less two days," said Miss Belcher; "for he called here and bought fifteen off me: gave me twenty-four shillings and sixpence apiece for all but one, which he swore was light. Who's murdered him?"

"There was talk of a boy," said Mr. Whitmore, still very deliberately. "At least, a boy was missing who had been seen in the house just previously, and they were watching the ferries for him. Why, surely, Rogers, that's a revoke!"

"A revoke?" stammered Mr. Rogers. "So it is—I beg your pardon, Tregaskis! Damn the cards! I'm too sleepy to tell one suit from another."

"That makes our game then, and the rubber. Rub and rub—shall we play the conqueror? No? As you please then. How do we stand?"

"We owe three guineas on points," growled a voice which, to judge by its sulkiness, belonged to Mr. Tregaskis.

"I'm a clumsy fool," Mr. Rogers again accused himself. "Here, Whitmore, give me change out of a note."

"With pleasure. It's as good as a gift, though, with the cards you held," said Mr. Whitmore, and I heard the coins jingle in changing hands, when from the shrubbery, where the gravel sweep narrowed, there sounded the low hoot of an owl. Being town-bred and unused to owls, I took it for a human cry in the darkness and shrank closer against my mock-orange bush.

"Hallo, Whitmore, you've dropped a guinea. Here it is, by the table-leg. Take twenty-four shillings for it, now that old Rodriguez is gone?"

Mr. Whitmore thanked the speaker as the coin was restored to him. "The room's hot, as Mr. Rogers says, and I think I'll step out for a mouthful of fresh air. Phe—ew!" he drew a long breath as he appeared at the window.

He strolled carelessly out beneath the verandah and stood for a moment by one of its pillars. And at that moment the owl's cry sounded again, but more softly, from the shrubbery on my left. I knew, then, that it came from no true bird. With a swift glance back into the room Mr. Whitmore stepped out upon the gravel and followed the sound, almost brushing the mock-orange bush as he passed.



CHAPTER XIV.

THE MOCK-ORANGE BUSH.

To my dismay, he halted but five paces from me.

"Is that you, Leicester?" he whispered.

"Sergeant Letcher, if you please," answered a quiet voice close by; "unless you wish to be called Pickthall."

"Not so loud—the windows are open. How on earth did you come here? You're not with the van to-night?"

"I came on a horse, and a lame one: one of your tub-carriers. The captain saw me mount him, down at the cove, and sent me off to scour the country for evidence. I guessed pretty well in what direction he'd take me. But you're a careless lot, I will say. Look at this bit of rope."

"For God's sake don't talk so loud! Rope? What rope?"

"Oh, you needn't be afraid! It's not your sort! Here—if you can't see, take hold and feel it. Left-handed, you'll notice—French sling-stuff. And that Belcher woman has no more sense of caution than to tie up her roses with it! Now see here, my son"—and his voice became a snarl—"it may do for her to play tricks. All the country knows her, the magistrates included. But for the likes of you this dancing on the edge of the law is risky, and I can't afford it. Understand? Why the devil you haunt the house as you do is more than I can fathom, unless maybe you're making up to marry the old fool." He paused and added contemplatively, "'Twould be something in your line to be sure. Women were always your game."

"You didn't whistle me out to tell me this," said Mr. Whitmore stiffly.

"No, I did not. I want ten pounds."

Mr. Whitmore groaned. "Look here, Leicst—"

"Be careful!"

"But this makes twice in ten days. It's pushing a man too hard altogether!"

"Not a bit of it," Letcher assured him cheerfully. "You're too devilish fond of your own neck, my lad; and I know it too devilish well to be come over by that talk." He chuckled to himself. "How's the beauty down at the cottage?"

"I don't know," Mr. Whitmore answered sulkily. "Is Plinlimmon there?"

"No, he's not; and you ought to know he's not. Where have you been, all day?"

The curate was silent.

"He'll be down again on Saturday, though. Leave of absence is going cheap, just now. I've an idea that our marching orders must be about due. Maybe I'll be able to run down myself, though my father hadn't the luck to be a friend of the Colonel's. If I don't, you're to keep your eye lifting, and report."

"Is there really a chance of the order coming?" asked Mr. Whitmore, with a shake in his low voice.

"Dissemble your joy, my friend! When it comes, I shall call on you for fifty. Meanwhile I tell you to keep your eye lifting. The battalion's raw, yet. About the order, it's only my guesswork, and before we sail you may yet do the christening."

"It's damnable!"

"Hush, you fool! Gad, if somebody hasn't heard you! Who's that?"

They held their breath; and I held mine, pressing my body into the mock-orange bush until the twigs cracked. Mr. Jack Rogers stepped out upon the verandah, and stood by one of the pillars, not a dozen yards from me, contemplating the sky where the dawn was now beginning to break over the dark shrubberies. I heard the two men tip-toeing away through the laurels.

He, too, seemed to catch the sound, for he turned his head sharply. But at that moment Miss Belcher's voice called him back into the room.

A minute later he reappeared with a loaf of bread in either hand, and walked moodily past my bush without turning his head or observing me.

I faced about cautiously and looked after him. From the end of the verandah the ground, sheltered on the right by a belt of evergreen trees, fell away steeply to a valley where, under the paling sky, a sheet of water glimmered. Towards this, down the grassy slope, Mr. Rogers went with long strides. I broke cover, and ran after him.