"What's that?" he snapped.

"That's death!" came a solemn voice from across the green.

The man bowed his head as though in acknowledgement.

"I got it," he said, and fell like a falling tower.

His fellows wavered. This sudden arrow from the quiver of the Great Bowman, so unexpected expected, pierced the hearts of all.

Into them, toppling, bowled Knapp like a cannon-ball.

"Ow, dear! Ow's that? Ow, my pore face!"

The chirpy Cockney voice popped out from the thick of them like a cork from a bottle, and a smack from a sledge-hammer fist punctuated each ow.

Blob, at a lurching gallop, plunged into the opening his leader had made, flashing his knife with a gurgling "Ho! ho!"

Last came the Parson with terrific sword.

It was all over before it had begun: a scuffle, a squeak, the flicker and tinkle of steel; and the cloud burst and scattered into its component drops.

The smugglers scampered away.

The Parson was wiping the point of his sword on a man.

"Dirty skunks!" he panted. "Had their bellyful before I'd begun."

Blob was laughing to himself.

"Oi loike killin," he gurgled. "It goos in so plop-loike."

A figure, tall and black as a winter tree, shot up against the light on the shingle-bank, and hung a second there.

The Parson waved.

"Too late, Monsieur le Poseur," he called mockingly. "Better luck next time."

The little party trotted across to the cottage, and entered.

Piper, awaiting them, slammed the door, and made all fast.

"Near thing, sir," chuckled the old man.

"Would have been but for that shot of yours," said the Parson, laying his burthen on the bed.

He leaned up against the wall, and panted, his good red face dripping.

"First round to England—eh?" he grinned.



BOOK III

FORT FLINT



I

BESIEGED



CHAPTER XLIV

THE ENGLISHMAN

All was dark within the kitchen of the cottage.

Spears of white light piercing the gloom told of day without.

The cottage was fast as a fortress. Stout planks were nailed across either door. Heavy shutters darkened the windows. Through a loop-hole a stream of light poured in on Nelson's old foretop-man.

Horn spectacles hung on his nose. His eyes were down, the silver head erect and drawn back. At arm's length beneath him he held a great Book in a splash of light.

He was reading aloud, spelling out the words, as does a child, and following with huge finger.

Outside a musket cracked; a bullet wanged against the wall; there was the crisp trickle of dislodged mortar.

Still muttering, the old man closed his Book, and removed his spectacles. Then he slewed his chair round to the loop-hole, and felt for his musket.

The light poured in upon the moon-washed head, the noble brow, and calm eyes peering forth.

Deliberately the old man moved his head to and fro, searching the offender. Then the musket went to his shoulder, cheek hugged stock, the face grew set. The mystic had turned man of action.

There was a flash in the darkness, a smother of white in the room, and outside a sudden sobbing cry.

A hand waved in the cloud, and out of it a still voice said,

"He wun't trouble no more."

The old man leant his reeking musket against the wall, and took up his Book tranquilly.



CHAPTER XLV

THE PARSON AT HOME

I

A clap of thunder, followed by a monstrous hissing overhead, awoke Kit from dreams of blackberrying with Gwen in the dew-white dawn.

He started up.

"What's that?" he cried, seeking his mind.

"The privateer barking good-bye, sir," came old Piper's voice from across the room. "She's stood in with the tide, and had a slap with her bow-chaser. Now she's going about."

The memories swooped back on Kit; Nelson, the despatches, the swim in the dark.

In a moment he was at the loop-hole, peering over the old man's shoulder.

On these in the sunshine he saw the brown-patched sails of the privateer lifted ladder-like from behind the shingle-bank, and strangely close. Then her bows slid into view, and he realised that she was standing out to sea:

The boy's heart soared.

They were free!

A great hand pulled him gently back from the loop-hole.

"By your leave, sir. They've a marksman on the knoll keeps on a-peckin at us."

The boy's heart sank.

"Then we aren't free?"

"Oh, no, sir. All round us, sir—a cord on em, Muster Joy calls it, soldier-fashion."

From above the Parson's cheery voice rang out.

"So she's left you in the lurch, my lord. That comes o trusting to a Frenchman."

Piper chuckled.

"Muster Joy and the Gentleman! Must keep on a-chaffin. At it all day yesterday they was, atween scrimmages."

A gay voice came sailing back from the open.

"Ah, Reverend Father, good morning! Yes, you must excuse her for the moment. She has an engagement to keep round the corner to-morrow."

"To-morrow!" echoed Kit, aghast. "Piper! how long have I been asleep?"

"Why, sir, you've slept round the clock and a bit more. It's nigh noon of what was to-morrow when you turned in."

No wonder he was hungry; no wonder he was fresh; no wonder that sound of hammering, which had disturbed him as he passed from a half-swoon into sleep, seemed so far off.

"Wednesday! Then to-morrow's Thursday!" he cried, rushing into his clothes. "O Nelson!" and he raced up the ladder.

The loft was full of light, dazzling after the twilight of the kitchen.

II

A mattress, stuffed clumsily in the seaward window, half blocked it. In the dormer looking towards the Downs, two biscuit-boxes crammed with earth sat on the sill, forming a rough head-cover.

Behind these Knapp sprawled on his stomach. Beside him was a wooden porringer full of bullets, and a basin of black powder; in his hand a musket.

In a cobweb corner by a barrel, Blob crouched covetously; while beside the mattress-curtain sat the Parson in his shirt-sleeves, furbishing Polly, and pausing every now and then to spy out through the bulges.

As Kit clambered on to the floor, the Parson turned, his blue eyes merry, and curls a-ripple.

"Ah, Kit, my boy, how are you?"

"Alive and well, sir, thanks to you. And you, sir?"

"I!" laughed the Parson. "I'm another man." A bullet whizzed by. The Parson listened sentimentally. "That's the music!" raising his face with a rapt smile. "Always makes me think of angels' wings."

He seemed to have grown, body and soul. His eyes shone, his cheeks glowed; he was crisp as a rimy apple.

Kit felt the change.

Responsibility, the searcher out of souls, had exhilarated and sobered the man. He was graver yet gayer, inspiring and inspired.

"Duck up aloft!" came a sudden roar from beneath.

The Parson smote Kit a blow on the chest that sent him staggering back against the wall.

A bullet whistled in at one window and out at the other.

The Parson crawled across to Knapp, lying on his face, and dealt him a tremendous buffet.

"Dog!" he thundered. "Why don't you shout?"

The little man's body leapt to the blow, but he made no answer.

"Go below!" ordered the Parson savagely. "What's the good of you? I set you there to warn us and all you can do is to grovel on your stomach and snivel."

The little Cockney rose without a word and crept away, his tail between his legs. Kit saw his face. One eye was black; and his face was so woebegone that but for the misery in it Kit would have smiled.

"Their shooting is exquisite," said the Parson with professional delight. "You can't show a finger.... They've nearly had Blob already —ain't they, Blob?"

Blob, cuddling in the corner, shook his head cunningly.

"Oi've had them," he said. "Three pennorth of em," pointing to the little pile of coppers at his side.

"I'm giving him a penny apiece for each Gang-er he gets, and twice the money for a Frenchman," the Parson explained. "It stimulates effort," he added, prim as a pedagogue, but with twinkling eye. "And now, Kit, your story."



CHAPTER XLVI

THE PARSON'S STORY

Swiftly the boy told his tale.

"But for you and the soldiers," he ended....

"There were no soldiers," answered the Parson curtly.

"What, sir!—I thought!—some men in shakos behind the bank—the men Knapp brought."

The Parson ground his teeth.

"Knapp brought no men. He got as far as the Lamb in Eastbourne on the hill yonder, and there he got playing the fool, and sneaked back here about twenty minutes after you were gone with a pair of black eyes and a pack of lies and nothing else."

All the ruddiness had left his face. It was grey as steel and dark.

"I tried him by drum-head court-martial then and there, for misconduct in the presence of the enemy. I was the President, Piper the Court. The Court found him guilty and sentenced him to be shot. I confirmed the sentence, and proceeded to carry it out."

He rapped the words out clean and clear. Kit felt himself seeing this man with new eyes, the eyes of a great respect. The fellow schoolboy of yesterday had turned into the man of war, stern and terrible. Kit was afraid of him.

"There was nothing to wait for," continued the Parson. "So I had him out and made him dig his own grave against the wall.

"'It's blanky ard,' said he.

"'You're a soldier; and this is war,' I answered. 'I'm going to count two—then fire. Make your peace with your Maker.'

"I hadn't got to two, when I heard a hubbub on the privateer, and knew you were either caught or in difficulties.

"'This can wait,' I said. 'I'll use you first, and shoot you afterwards!'"

The blood stole back to the Parson's face. His eyes lifted, twinkling now.

"It's resource that makes the soldier, you know, Kit. I slipped into my old regimentals, gave Knapp his bugle, clapped a shako on Blob's head, and put the two of them behind the shingle-bank to act as a skeleton-force.... And you know the rest."

Kit gazed at the square-set figure before him with respectful admiration.

"It must have been a close thing, sir."

The Parson shrugged.

"It would have been a mere bagatelle but for the Gap Gang cutting in on our line of retreat. That added interest, and made a bright little affair of what would otherwise have been a dull retirement."

"And how did the Gap Gang come to cut in?"

"Oh, that's easily explained....

"At midnight I went out to beat em up—crept along under the cliff past Holy Well. When I got to Cow Gap, there were my friends lying on their backs in a bunch, snoring like so many sows, and the boat beached beneath em. I believe I could have killed the lot then and there, and nobody the wiser; but I wasn't going to soil my hands with the cold blood of those swine. So I just jumped into the boat, and got to work at once—put my heel through her bottom, and was just tearing up a plank, when the noise wakes old Red Beard.

"'Who the blank's that?' he growled, sitting up in the moonlight.

"'Why,' says I, tearing away, 'the gentleman you're good enough to call the blankety Parson.'

"'Then guess we've got you, sir,' says he, and comes down the beach at me at the double.

"'Think so?' says I, jumping out to meet him.

"'Twenty to one, sir!' says he. 'Chuck it up.'

"'Pardon,' says I, 'nineteen to one, I think,' and downs him with my left. O, such a beauty! flop in the mug.

"They were all awake by this of course; and there was a little bit of trouble. I wasn't going to ask my sweet lady to soil her lips on those mucky blackguards, so I kept dodging away before them, just doing enough with my dukes to keep them amused. They were no more good than a mob of cattle, you see—drunk with sleep and liquor, the lot of em.

"'Out knives, boys, and finish the blank!' says old Toadie.

"And pon my soul they came on so hot I don't know what mightn't have happened, when all of a sudden,

"'The boat!' screams Fat George from behind. 'Some blankety blank's at the boat.'

"And sure enough there was a long-legged chap launching the boat. In he jumped, shoved her off, and lay on his oars, lookin at em, as they came running along the edge of the sea."

The Parson threw back his jolly head.

"Laugh, Kit!—I never saw a fellow laugh as he did. I roared to see him. And all the while those chaps were skipping about on the shore, howling like lunatics. You never heard such a row. Then Fat George, when he saw it was all up, tried the leary lay.

"'I know it's just a joke o the Genelman's,' says he in that greasy- wheazy voice of his.

"'That's just it, George,' the other calls across the water, 'and the best joke I've enjoyed since I saw Black Diamond brand you with the hot iron you'd just branded the lugger's kitten with.'

"'What I mean,' whines Fat George, 'you wouldn't go for to leave a lot o pore blokes on a dead foul lee-shore—what got there through trying to sarve you.'

"'Sarve me!' says the Gentleman. 'Yes, Garge, my faithful friend— sarve me in the back with two fut o carvin-knife, while I was chattin with Garge's pals.'

"At that Fat George snatches the musket and pulls.

"I heard the click of the hammer, but there was never so much as a flash in a pan.

"'Thank you, thank you, Fatty, my friend,' says the French feller. 'But you know you'd make better shooting, if I hadn't wetted your priming.'

"Then he struck his oars in the water. 'And now good-night all,' says he. 'Black Diamond was a man, if he was a devil. As to the rest of you, the best I can wish you is a long drop, and a rope that runs free. And as for you, Fat George, I won't forget you in this world, and God won't forget you in the next.'

"Then he came rowing along inside the barrier of rocks to me.

"'I don't know who you are, sir,' says he, taking off his hat in his dandified French way, 'but I'm sure I owe you my best thanks. If it hadn't been for you, I hardly know how I should have managed.'

"Well, of course I knew very well who he was, and what he was after. But I knew the boat was sinking, and I saw he couldn't row. So I never thought he'd reach the ship. Still the longer I kept him talking, the better your chance. So—

"'You're very welcome, sir,' says I. 'Won't you step ashore and thank me in person?'

"'I'm grieved to the heart,' says he, 'but I must postpone that pleasure till another day. Perhaps we shall meet again. I hope to return in a few weeks—not alone next time.'

"'Quite so,' thinks I, 'at the head of the Army of England. No you don't, my fine fellow, not if I can keep you messing about there a few minutes longer.'

"'And perhaps we have met before,' says I, taking off my hat.

"He peered at me in the moonlight.

"'What!' he cries—'not my old friend, Black Cock, again?'

"'The same at your service,' says I, 'still waiting to have his comb cut.'

"'This is a great happiness,' says he, very earnest, and paddles in a bit.

"'It's mutual,' says I. 'And if you've quite done posing won't you step ashore and let us consummate our joy? A sweet stretch of sand, and a lovely light.'

"Pon my soul for a moment I thought he would. Then,

"'I can't to-day, bad cess to it,' says he. 'Tell you the truth I'm in the devil's own hurry. Got an interview with his Sacred Majesty, our noble Emperor, whom may Heaven preserve, at twelve noon to-morrow. And if I don't keep it, I stand to lose a lot o little things—my head among em. I'm in disgrace, you see—always have been from a child!'

"He lifts his sword to his lips, quite the play-actor.

"'But here's to our next merry meeting, sir.'

"'And may it be soon, Monsieur le Poseur,' says I, answering his salute.

"And it's proved sooner than either of us expected. There's he: here'm I. One side this wall the first light cavalryman in Europe, 'tother— Harry Joy, ex-Captain of British infantry. Now we've got to see which is the better man."

He squared his shoulders.

Whoever else might find the situation unsatisfactory it was not Parson Joy.



CHAPTER XLVII

THE DESPATCH-BAG

I

"That is the first part of the story, and the least," said the Parson. "And while I'm telling you the rest you'd better have some grub."

He reached up to a rafter.

"I keep the tackle up here out of Blob's way. The boy's all belly— ain't you, you young shark?"

Blob stroked his waist feelingly.

"She kips on a-talkin," he purred. "She dawn't get much answer though."

"Well, don't eat that candle anyway, you little glutton!"

"Oi warn't eatin it," said Blob, aggrieved. "Oi were suckin it."

The Parson arranged what food there was on the floor.

'"Honour and salt-beef—campaigners' fare!' as Nelson used to say in Corsica....

"And while you're at that, I'll get on with my story."

II

He went to the gable-end and took down a tarpaulin bag hanging on a staple.

"Kit, that was a great haul you made."

He took a packet from the bag.

"What d'you think this contains?" stripping the india-rubber from it.

There crept into his eyes again that steely look.

"It contains," he continued in the still voice of the man so moved that he dare hardly trust himself, "a list of all those gentlemen of Kent and Sussex who are a nous, as the paper says."

The boy dropped his knife.

"Traitors in fact!"

"That's the ugly word," said the Parson between set teeth. "And may God have mercy on them as they deserve!... When I read that list," he continued, breathing hard, "for the first time in my life I was sick, sick to call myself an Englishman.... There are men down there I've dined with, gamed with, chaffed with, may heaven forgive me for it! true men as I honestly believed, men I've seen drink the King's health and damnation to the French with three times three, as a Christian and a gentleman should. There are magistrates, squires, a peer or two, one sheriff, a deputy-lieutenant, and small fry— publicans, carriers, smugglers, and the like—by the score."

He spread squares of paper on the floor, piecing them.

"And here's a map in sections of the whole country from Pevensey to Westminster—farms, inns, cottages, all put down, see!—where guides can be got; the wells marked, bakers' shops, mills; roads, metalled and unmetalled; and in the margin here and there a Church or what-not drawn out pretty as you please for a sign-post."

The boy looked. Yes, it was the hand that had written the scent-bottle note.

"There's enough in that bag to hang some of the best names in England," continued the Parson with gloating delight. "And I hope to have that bag in Pitt's hands before many hours are out."

The colour stole back to his cheeks, and he began to rub his hands together.

"Kit, my boy, we'll have such a hanging as was never before seen in England—God helping us.... That's what we're here for."

The boy's eyes were raised to his.

"No, sir, please. What we're here for is to save Nelson."

III

The Parson staggered.

"Nelson!" he cried, ghastly.

His mind clutched in the dark at something it had lost.

"The plot, sir.... Beachy Head."

"My God!" cried the Parson, and died against the wall.

The despatch-bag and its contents had so possessed him that Nelson's need had for the moment slipped his mind.

"And I call myself a soldier!"

He leapt to life again.

"What's to-day?" savagely.

"Wednesday, sir."

"Is it to-morrow?"

"Yes, sir."

The life faded out of his blue eyes.

Till that moment he had been hugging the comfortable belief that Time, the soldier's best ally and worst enemy, was on his side. Sooner or later relief must come. Cosy in their tiny fortress, they could afford to wait for it. The Gentleman could not. Now for the first time the Parson learned that his anticipated ally was his foeman's.

"Talk of Knapp!—I'm the one ought to be shot."

"How soon shall we be relieved, sir?" asked the boy feverishly at his side. "When may we expect the soldiers?"

The words revived the Parson like a whip-lash. Knapp, a soldier, had betrayed his trust. He, a soldier, had let slip thirty golden hours. He was bitterly jealous for his dear Service.

"We shan't be relieved," he snarled. "How can the soldiers relieve us when they don't know we want relief? Knapp didn't get through—told you so already once."

"But the country-folk, sir! Surely they'll report."

"No, they won't," stonily. "This is Sussex. We aren't alive in Sussex: we're dead-alive.... If they did see anything was up they'd only think it was one of the ordinary rows between the blockade-men and the gentlemen, as they call the smugglers."

He looked out of the Downward window. There was little comfort. Tall men in French uniforms swaggered about England's greensward as though already it was theirs. He could catch their beastly foreign lingo. The sight and sound made him mad. Grim old watchdog that he was, he felt the bristles at the back of his neck rising. What right had these strange folk in his back-yard?—O to make his teeth meet in their gaitered legs!

Besides the Frenchmen, not a soul stirring.

English rooks cawing over English green, and an English sheepdog answering them.

A lonely land at the best of times, it was a desert now.

Westward in a cloud of beeches, a grey house glimmered—George Cavendish's—empty. The Seahouses over by Splash Point—empty too. So was every house of any size for ten miles inland from Fair-light to Selsea Bill. Everybody bolted who could afford it. The old lady of Hailsham quite a proverb for pluck in these parts; and they said she looked under her bed every night to see if the French had come.

And the luck! where was the luck?

Ten days since this uttermost corner of England had stirred to the strange music of men making ready for battle: bugle-calling Cavalry in the new barracks in Eastbourne on the hill; thundering Artillery in the Circular Redoubt at Langney Point; Sea-Fencibles in the martello- towers along Pevensey Levels. Now all was still and dead again. A concentration in force had taken place at Lewes. The Cavalry had been withdrawn to the camp there. A case of cholera had emptied Langney Fort. The Sea-Fencibles had run away. Black Diamond had swept up the blockademen.

Darkness, darkness, everywhere.

Kit stole to his side.

"We must get a message through to Nelson," he chattered. "We must."

The boy felt himself at war with destiny, and crushed by it. He recalled the Man of Despair in the Iron Cage in Pilgrim's Progress. The fate of the country was in his hands. He alone had the knowledge that could save her, and he could not use it. He was a dumb thing, possessed of a vast world-secret, which he could not impart for lack of voice.

"If there's no other way, we must cut our way through."

The Parson met him with a rough,

"Nonsense."

"Why?" hotly.

"Impossible—that's why."

It was the first time he had thrown that dead-wall word across the lad's path, and it maddened the boy.

After all, he was responsible, not this beefy soldier.

"That's a word we don't know in our Service, sir," he cried with scornful nostrils.

The taunt touched the Parson on the raw.

He swung round savagely.

"Your Service!" he stormed. "At a time such as this, there is only one Service for loyal hearts, and that's the Service of his country."

The lad quailed before the thunder-and-lightning of the man's wrath.

"Why can't we sally?" sullenly.

The Parson shot a hand toward the window.

The boy followed his pointing finger.

In the open, behind the wall, was a camp-fire, a group of soldiers squatting round it, arms piled. To right and left, embracing the cottage, a chain of sentries ran, tall men all in tall-plumed bear- skins.

Old Piper was right. A cordon indeed!

"Grenadiers of the Guard!" rumbled the Parson in the boy's ear, rolling his r's like a feu de joie. "Marksmen to a man; veterans all; and half of them decorated."

Grenadiers of the Guard! the men of the Bridge of Lodi, of the Battle of the Pyramids and Mount Tabor, of Hochstadt and Hohenlinden.

Kit recalled the tops of the Cocotie swarming with riflemen, and old Ding-dong's surprised disgust.

Now he understood.

On the success of this venture hung Napoleon's world-projects. Coute que coute, he had told Mouche, he must bring off this coup. So he was employing on it the pick of the first Army the world had ever seen.

As he thought of the issues at stake, the boy's soul fainted within him.

How could he, Kit Caryll, aged fifteen, and hovering on the brink of tears, stand up against the Victor of Marengo?



CHAPTER XLVIII

THE DOXIE'S DAUGHTER

I

The boy's long face, anxious before, grew haggard now.

It wore the look of one with the enthusiasms of a saint across whose path Sin, the Insurmountable, has fallen suddenly.

"We're done," he said, husky and white.

His words revived the other. True man that he was, despair in the boy's heart quickened the courage in his own.

"Never say die till you're dead," he cried, squaring his shoulders— "that's the Englishman's motto."

His spirit rose to meet the occasion.

"Our theatrical friend outside there's no fool. But—but—but! there's just one element he's not reckoned with."

"What?" cried Kit, hanging on his words.

The Parson dropped head and voice.

"Who saved you from the Tremendous?" he whispered. "Who handed you up a cliff a goat couldn't climb?—who brought you to this house? —who put the flag-idea into your head, and brought it off?"

The Parson's words made sudden confusion in the lad's mind. It came to him with a shock of surprise to find such triumphant faith in this ruddy fighting-man.

"And why d'you think of all the houses in the world He sent you to this one?" the other continued.

"Because of you, sir."

The Parson frowned, and approached his lips to the lad's ear.

"Because it's got a secret passage!"

This most matter-of-fact explanation flashed the laughter to the boy's eyes.

"I mean it," said the other earnestly. "Ain't you noticed anything about the floor of the kitchen?"

"It sounds hollow."

"It is hollow. It's built over an old decoy-pond."

In a few words the Parson outlined the history of the secret passage.

A water-way had led from decoy-pond to sea. The sea had gone back and left the water-way and pond high and dry. Sixty years back a sly old sea-dog had built this lonely cottage over the pond. He had covered the water-way and made a drain of it. Thus he had secured a secret passage to the sea, and the cottage had become the receiving depot of Ruxley's crew.

"Where does it lead to?" asked the boy, all eyes.

"Out into the creek we crossed on the way to the Wish."

"And how many people know about it?"

"Three. One's you; one's me; one's the son of the man who built the cottage—and that's old Piper down below there.... It's not been used for forty years. The sea went back and back, and the creek's been dry these years past."

Kit's knees invited him to prayer. This was not chance; it was not coincidence.

"You're right, sir," said the boy chokily. "He's in it."

"And what's more He's going to get us out," replied the Parson, cheerfully matter-of-fact.

The boy was slipping off his coat.

"I'd better start at once. There's not a second to lose. Nelson may sail this evening."

The Parson laid a kind hand on the lad's shoulder.

"The boy's as greedy for glory as Nelson himself," he laughed. "But the Navy can't do it all, you know. Give us a chance.... When we've got the best pair of legs South of Thames trained to a tick, and fighting mad for their chance, we may as well use em."

Kit gasped.

"Nipper Knapp!" and added in a flash, "May I go with him, sir?"

"To the mouth of the drain," said the Parson. "No further."

II

He turned about.

"Blob, come here. Keep a sharp look-out at this window, and give a holloa if anything stirs. You can sing em a little song, if you know one to keep em quiet."

He slid down into the twilight of the kitchen. There only the old foretop-man was to be seen, patient at his post of watch.

"Where's Knapp, Piper?"

"Why, sir, in the cellar. Wanted to be alone with his trouble, I reck'n. Tarrabul down-earted, the poor lad be."

"I'll cheer him up," cried the Parson, and disappeared through an open trap-door into the night beneath. "Nipper Knapp! Nipper Knapp, my boy!"

In two minutes he was back.

Knapp was at his heel, sparring playfully at the back of the other's head.

True, for the broken heart there is no such cure as action or the hope of it.

As they emerged into the twilight of the kitchen a voice, pure as a rivulet's, poured down in song upon them from above.

From outside came a gust of laughter, and then a roaring chorus.

"By the Lord!" thundered the Parson. "It's The Doxie's Daughter."

"And the Gap Gang singing choir!" said Piper grimly. "Likely it'll be the only hymn they knaw."

"One moment, Master Blob!" muttered the Parson between clenched teeth. "I'll swab that boy's soul clean if I have to do it with a scrubbing-brush.... Now, Knapp, ready yourself, while I write a note to the Commandant."

Knapp tore off his coat, and began to fight an exhibition battle with a ghost in the corner.

"Will ye fight the lot then, Jack?" chuckled old Piper.

"Ay, and wop em, too!" cried the little man, dodging, ducking. "Ave a slap at em first, and then go through—that's my idee."

"It's not mine, though!" roared the Parson, catching him a rousing kick. "Get on with your undressing, d your eyes!"

He finished his note and folded it.

"And now for the sweet little cherub that sits up aloft."

III

He ran nimbly up the ladder, Kit at his heels.

The chorister had ceased his song.

Through the half-stuffed dormer, light streamed in on the white-washed wall, the cobwebs, rafters, and Polly in the corner, shining demure.

"Now where the dooce has that boy got?" muttered the Parson, looking round.

Kit pointed.

In the darkest corner, under the slope of the roof, stood an apple-barrel. Out of it two frog-like legs thrust and kicked with the action of one swimming. A protuberance crowned the rim of the barrel. Body, head, and arms were lost.

The Parson whipped up Polly.

"One for yourself!" he roared, prodding the boy's bad eminence, "and one for The Doxie's Daughter!"

"Hoi! that's Blo-ub!" yelled a muffled voice. Two hands shot out and plastered themselves over the stimulated part. There was a wriggle. Then Blob stood before them, touzled, pink, his ears wide, an apple tight between his teeth.

"D'you call that keeping a look-out?" thundered the Parson.

"Oi wur lookin out," said Blob, dogged and sullen.

"Then you keep your eyes where few of us do."

"Oi thart oi yerd a Frenchie in the bar'l," said Blob in the slow and undulating voice of Sussex. "Oi went fur to fetch un out, when a tarrabul great oarse-fly settled on ma butt-end and stung her."

"It was no horse-fly," replied the Parson. "It was my dear lady. Now, don't bother to think of any more lies, my lad, but just take that lantern from the wall, and go below. We'll join you in a minute."

IV

The Parson pulled aside the hanging mattress, and peeped seaward.

"Come here, boy. I want to show you the lie of the land. D'you see that chap in blue knickers in the shade of the sycamores?—he's the Gap Gang sentry. They're camped somewhere behind the knoll, the main of them. That's their smoke you see among the trees."

That roaring chorus still rang in the boy's ear.

"The drain runs to the right of the knoll, and out into the creek bang opposite the Wish. Half-way down it there's a man-hole."

An icy pang pierced Kit's heart.

"It's quite small, and a bush grows over it. It's a million to one they know nothing of it. Still you should—er—watch it."

The Parson was gnawing his under-lip.

"I'll watch it," said the boy, the waves breaking white about his face.

It must be somewhere just about the man-hole that Fat George and Co. were camped. Still he wasn't going to let this soldier know he was afraid.

But the soldier knew.

Outwardly calm, his own heart was a whirlpool of doubts. How could he stop behind a wall and send this lad out into the open to face heaven knew what? Yet here surely his obvious duty lay. Should the enemy storm, what could a legless old sailor and a brace of boys do against them? And unless he was mistaken mischief was brewing. Where was the Gentleman all this time? Yesterday he had been everywhere all the time. To-day the Parson had caught but one fleeting glimpse of him. The old soldier preferred his enemy's activity to his quiet. Was this the lull before the storm?

"I only want you to go to the mouth of the drain, and see him off," he said with calm cheerfulness. "Once away, you'd only hamper him."

That was truth at all events. Once away, Knapp's chance lay in his feet. With luck the little man'd be in Lewes in an hour and a half. With luck a good man on a good horse'd be in Chatham before night, another at the Admiralty, a third at Merton,—that was, if Beau Beauchamp would leave his actress for the moment to play the man. With luck Nelson wouldn't have sailed.

Lots of luck, true! still, who was it was on their side?

The fog of his doubts cleared away.

He turned to the boy with glowing eyes.

"Kit," he whispered, hugging the lad's arm, "we'll have a Gazette to ourselves yet."



THE SALLY



CHAPTER XLIX

MAKING READY

The kitchen was dim as a sick-room, and strangely hushed. No one spoke but the Parson and he in whispers, lecturing Knapp, undressing in the corner.

The gravity of the enterprise, its certain perils, the issues at stake, oppressed the room. Death was there already; as yet indeed only a ghost at each man's elbow, in a few moments maybe to become incarnate.

Kit felt it and sickened.

Perched upon the table, his back to the boarded window, he whetted his dirk upon his shoe, and wondered if those others, those men, Knapp most of all, felt as he did.

Privately he thanked heaven that the dusk hid his face.

Through chinks and splintered bullet-holes, the light stole in, making daggers across the darkness.

It splashed the walls, the great stone-flags, the black mouth of the cellar, and the dresser in the corner.

There sat Knapp, a grey ghost spotted here and there with light. The little rifleman was naked now, save for a pair of fighting drawers. A heap of clothes sprawled at his feet.

The little rifleman was like a child. Broken-hearted a minute back, now he was as a lion in leash.

There was an adventure forward, and the off chance of a fight: he brimmed at the thought of it. Without imagination, he knew no fear; with little experience of pain, he didn't much believe in it. They wouldn't catch him; they wouldn't hit him!

Before him knelt the Parson with low head, swathing his feet with strips of torn towel, absorbed as a surgeon, careful as a mother.

"Is that easy?—now how's that?—try your foot down! Another turn round the ankle?—Remember, it'll be rough going till you strike the grass."

At the loop-hole Nelson's old foretop-man watched and waited. A gleam smote his silver hair and prophetic forehead. Kit watched him wondering.

The old man, so tranquil amid the stir and whisper of death, affected the boy as One years ago had affected other seamen tempest-tossed.

His chattering heart hushed as a sparrow hushes in the quiet of a great cathedral.

Then the world rushed in on him with a shout.

Again that gust of laughter outside, that roaring chorus.

The Gap Gang were making merry.

The contrast revolted the lad.

The table on which he sat began to rattle.

Quietly he slipped off it. But the old foretop-man had heard.

Leaving his post, he came rumbling across the uneven flags.

"The waitin time's generally always the worst time, sir," he whispered. "Sooner farty actions than wait for one—I've hard Lard Nelson say it himsalf."

"I am a bit—quaky," replied the boy, and would have admitted as much to no other man, and to few women.

"And none the worse for that, sir. It's a poor heart that can't feel fear. If a man's not a bit timersome about facin his Maker, then he ought to be. Pluck's doin your duty although you are afear'd. You'll be right enough once you're in it, surely.... And if you're not above a hint from a man before the mast, sir, you'll take them shoes off. Boardin-parties bare-fut—that was ollus the word aboard the Agamemnon.... Ah, Knapp, feelin slap?"

"Ay, fit to run for me life or fight for it," bubbled the little rifleman, prancing out of his corner.

The Parson beckoned Kit.

"You see his sort," he whispered. "The chap's as full of meat and mischief as a lion-cub." He turned again. "Knapp," he said solemnly, "this is your officer. He's coming with you to see you off. He carries the King's commission as truly as I do. You'll obey him as you would me, and no nonsense, d'you see?"

"Very good, sir," said the little man, jigging and bobbing. "I'm all of a pop like. Seems I might go off any moment."

"Any tomfoolery and you will go off," replied the Parson sternly—"out of this world into the next—pop! as you say yourself. You've only one chance against the finest marksmen in the world, and that's to show em a clean pair of heels. If you don't, you've fought your last fight, my lad! Ginger Jake's cock of the South."

The last words went home. The little rifleman became very grave. He swung round to Piper in his swift bird-like way.

"Mr. Piper, pop off a prayer for us."

The common-sense saint lifted his head.

"God elp and strengthen your legs, Nipper Knapp," he prayed.

"That's the point, O Lord!—his legs!" punctuated the Parson.

"Sometimes," continued the old foretop-man solemnly, "I have wondered why the Lard saw good to take my legs to Himsalf. Rack'n I knaw now." He reached out a huge hand, gripped the little rifleman and pulled him closer. "There's nawthin cut to waste in this world," he whispered huskily. "And it's my belieft He's been savin of em up this ten year past agin this day—to put the strength of em into your'n, Jack Knapp. May you make good use o both pairs—your own o the flesh, and mine o the sperrit!—that's my best prayer for you."

The little rifleman, as simple as the old sailor, was profoundly touched.

"I'll do me best, Mr. Piper, struth I will!" he sniffed. "Never do to mess it a'ter all His trouble."

"Give us your hand on it!" said the old man. "And you too, sir, if so be a common sailor might make so bold."

The old sailor and the young shook hands feelingly: the two soldiers followed suit.

"Don't forget you're a Black Borderer, my boy," said the Parson, one hand on the rifleman's shoulder.

"That I'll never, sir!" replied the little man, almost in tears.

Parson and Kit gripped hands: neither spoke.

Then the Parson ran up the ladder.



CHAPTER L

IN THE DRAIN

The little party of adventurers filed down into the dark.

Blob's lantern shone on the rusty iron door, streaked with damp, which barred the mouth of the drain.

It was very chill down there. Knapp was shivering as he played with the bolts. Blob, impassive as a jellyfish, was still sucking at his apple.

Quick and clear Kit gave his orders.

"Knapp, stop tinkering those bolts about, and stand back till I give the word! Now, Blob, listen here!—Knapp and I are going through this door down the drain. You'll stand here with the lantern, and light us, d'you see?"

"Ah!" said Blob.

"You're not to stir, d'you see, boy?"

"Aw!" said Blob.

Kit gripped his arm, and looked into his round and dewy eyes.

"Half-way down the drain there's a hole, where the light comes in." He was articulating his words with the slow precision of one addressing a deaf man. Now if, after we've passed that hole, anybody should get down through it into the drain, then you're to slam the door—and bolt!...

"Now repeat my instructions."

Blob mooned and mowed, his eyes roaming the cellar.

"Repate moi ructions," he mumbled at last.

"Ass!" snapped Kit. "Here!—stand so!—the lantern between your feet. That's right. Now don't stir. Ready, Knapp?"

"On the boil, sir," bobbing and blowing on his fists.

"Then come on."

Kit drew the wheezing bolts, and flung back the door. A chill breeze entered.

Before the boy could stop him, the little rifleman was through the door and away down the drain.

"Come back!" ordered Kit in a fierce whisper.

The man, stooping in the drain, turned and grinned.

"In my Service, sir, Borderers lead."

"In my Service, officers do.... Come back!"

The boy had nothing but his dirk; but that he pointed resolutely; and the lantern-light glimmered in the darkness as on a steel-barrel.

Knapp crawled back, delighted.

"You're the sort," he chuckled, patting the lad on the back. "Quite the little man o war."

"Get to heel," snarled Kit. "Hold your tongue. Keep your paws to yourself. And address me respectfully and properly."

The drain ran away before them, a long black tunnel, focussing in a remote jewel of light. It was like the Alley of Life, cramped and dark, and at the far end of it a little door opening on heaven. And across the door the boy seemed to see written the one word

Nelson.

He advanced into the breathing darkness, his eye on that guiding light. Half-way down the drain a dim patch brightened the black floor. There was the man-hole; there was the danger-point.

He crept forward with groping hands. The bricks were cold and sweating, the atmosphere that of the grave. It seemed to smell of dead men. The boy felt as though a mountain was smothering him. He found himself breathing deep as though in difficulties.

Even Knapp, crawling at his heels, appeared affected.

The man was humming something in a dirge-like monotone. At first Kit thought it was some sort of a Litany; then he caught the words:

"Two little corpseses goes for a walk In a church-yard under the sea, Says the one to the other— 'I'll squeak if you'll squawk To keep me company.'"

The humming ceased, and Kit missed it.

"Are you there, Knapp?"

"Yes, sir. Smotherified feelin, ain't it?"

"Do you hear anything?"

"Only me own teeth chatter."

"Hush, then."

They were drawing near the man-hole.

The boy was sweating, shivering. He was living in death.

A very little, and he would have had one of his old screaming panics of the night-nursery. Then that tiny diamond of light, hanging in the blackness before him, the one word written across it, steadied him. It was a star, his star. It sang to him the Song of Faith.

Besides, how could he run away?—he, an officer, a gentleman, a sailor, run away before a private soldier? No. It is easier to lead somebody who believes you to be brave than to let him know you are a coward—especially if he's a soldier. The thought tickled him, and his heart surged upward.

They were very near the man-hole now.

Kit turned and pointed.

Knapp put out his tongue in reply.

The patch of light on the floor was dim and chequered. The old bush then was in its place. The boy thanked heaven for it, and stopped dead.

Above the tumult of his heart he could hear a voice: so close too that had he prodded upwards through the thin crust of earth he would have stabbed the speaker.

And how well he knew that ghastly treble!



CHAPTER LI

VOICES OF THE LOST

_"Where's Bandy?"

"Where we'll all be afore we're much older—in ell this alf our."

"What ye mean?"

"Ave a peep in the creek yonder. You'll see sharp enough what I mean."_

Another voice, dark and brooding, joined in:

_"Who stuck him?"

"The Genelman."

"What for?"

"Back-answerin him."_

A fourth voice, very black and bitter, flared up:

_"That's im!—bangs you up in the firin line, then sticks you if you look at him. If it's storm, we got to do it. If it's sally, we got to meet it. If it's neether, we got to set round and take Piper's pot- luck, while he and his chaps lay safe out o range and, shoots us if we bolt."

"Where's the good in boltin?"_ came the brooding voice. _"Nowhere to bolt to. Jack Ketch's our only friend this side the water."_

There was a stony silence.

"How long's this —— game goin to last?—that's what I want to know," came the black and bitter voice at last.

The ghastly treble chimed in:

"That's what I says to im last night when e come his rounds. 'We're only poor chaps, my lord,' says I. 'We've lost alf the number of our mess in your service. And now I'd make bold to ask how long you're goin to keep us here?'

"'Why,' says he, suckin his hanky, 'that depends on your sweet selves. You may go as soon as you've took the cottage.'

"'And what if the sogers come first?' I says. 'There's a camp at Lewes, you know, my lord.'

"'Why then,' says he, and I lay he thought he was funny, 'I'll leave you to the hands of your beloved compatriots. And what can a good man want more'n that?'

"'We're the Gap Gang, my lord,' says I.

"'Well,' says he, 'if that don't suit you, hurry up and take the cottage and have done with it. I'm gettin tired o this messin about business.'

"'Beg pardon, my lord,' says I, 'but what are we to ave for our trouble, when we ave took it?'

"'Why,' says he, very pleasant, 'if you're good, Friend George, when the job's done, per-raps,' says he, 'per-raps I'll give you a lift back to France in my lugger layin on the beach there.'

"'Our lugger, sure-ly, my lord,' says I.

"'No, my friend,' says he, 'it was the late lamented Diamond's. Now it's our noble Emperor's, Gorblessim!—a derelict picked up on the igh seas by one of His Majesty's frigates.'"

The treble ceased.

"Pretty position for the genelmen o the Gap Gang, ain't it?" came the black and bitter voice. "Shot takin the place, or hung if you don't."

"Ah," came the treble again, "it wouldn't take me long to do somethin to him. See. Sow!"

"Only you'd ave to get somebury to old is ands first," grumbled Red Beard.

"Scream!" said the fat man, unheeding. "I'd make his soul talk."

The brutal Toadie rumbled off into laughter.



CHAPTER LII

HARE AND HOUND

I

Brutes!

But—they knew nothing of the man-hole they were clustered round.

The boy's heart soared.

He passed on, as quiet as a mole.

Burrowing beneath the lowest hell, he had heard the voices of those in torment within hand's touch of him.

Now heaven opened its far door. He crawled towards the light. It was no longer a star; it was an eye, the eye of a soul, the Soul of Souls. And it was loving him.

The boy crawled on.

The great earth, warm and dark about him, gave him strength. She was a friendly great beast, breathing and blowing all round him. He could hear her, and feel her. On Beachy Head he had been a fly crawling on her hide; now he was the same fly swallowed. He was creeping along her gullet towards her mouth. Motherly old thing, she covered him well, and he was grateful to her. That good thick flesh of hers stood between him and that which he did not care to contemplate. As he crawled he kicked her in the ribs to show he recognized that she meant well.

The light was growing on him now. The wind blew on his damp forehead. He could see the round of sky, blue against the black arch of brick.

Warily he peeped through the screen of tamarisk that veiled the opening.

The creek lay a few feet below. Across it, the smooth side of the Wish flowed upward.

A sentinel crowned the little hill, but his face was seaward.

Otherwise the coast was clear.

No!

On the slope of the Wish, facing him, a man was lying.

II

The man was lying on his back half-way up the slope, reading a little brown book.

Kit could not see his face; but he had no need.

Well he knew those buck-skin breeches, those mud-spattered tops, those tall knees.

"Who's that bloke?" whispered a voice at his ear.

"The officer commanding the French. Hush!"

"Crikey!" whispered Knapp, much impressed, and peering through the tamarisk. "Ain't he got a pair o legs on him neether?"

Before Kit could stop him, he had brushed past and dropped into the creek, light as a feather.

For a moment he squatted there, monkey-fashion, blinking after the darkness.

The sun shone on his naked back, ridged and rippling. A little man, he was solid as a boulder: thighs tremendous, shin-bones great and bowed. Such fists too! such feet!

Kit leaned out. For better or worse, the thing was done now. No good calling him back, no good cursing him. Better make the best of it.

"You've got a clear run," whispered the boy. "Hug the far bank, so the sentry on the Wish can't see you; stick to the creek as far as you can; and when you leave the shore, take a wide sweep towards the Downs, to avoid their sentries; and then run, man!—run as you never ran before!"

"I'll run, man, run fast enough soon as you done talkin," replied the Cockney cheekily, hopping across the creek to the shelter of the far bank. "Be in Lewes afore you're back to the guv'nor, I'll lay. Ta-ta."

He was away down the creek, running like a monkey, finger-tips touching the ground.

Kit, thankful to tears, watched the sun on the man's ridged back, as he stole away.

Surely, he was through now.

A sound made him look up.

III

The Gentleman had not stirred. He was reading aloud, and loving what he read.

"Little lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee?"

Heaven send Knapp had not heard; but he had.

Up bobbed the black shaven pate out of the creek, much as Kit had often seen the head of a coot bob up in one of the moorland tarns of his own Northumberland.

The little man stood listening, the sun on his shoulders, careless of discovery.

The voice on the hill, loving and laughing, drew him like a syren's.

Was the man mad?

He was climbing up out of the creek on to the grass.

Kit swept the tamarisk aside, and waved at him furiously. The little man soothed him with mocking hand, and crept on.

Kit dared not shout; he could not catch the other. What could he do? Watch and pray, with sickening heart.

"Little lamb, I'll tell thee, Little lamb, I'll tell thee: He is called by thy name."

Beautiful as it was, the boy could not listen. His soul was in his eyes, and his eyes on Knapp.

The little man was now behind the reader, and stalking him on hands and knees.

What on earth was he up to?

A horrible thought wrenched the boy's heart.

Would Knapp stab the other as he lay?

If so, could he stand by and see that little baboon-thing with the hairy bosom and leg-of-mutton fists murder in cold blood a noble gentleman to whom he owed his life?

Then he remembered thankfully that Knapp had no weapons.

"Little Lamb, God bless thee! Little Lamb, God bless thee!"

Knapp had stopped now, and seemed bending over the other. Then he deliberately thrust his hand into the face beneath him.

The Gentleman sat up, snatching for his sword.

"Tweak his conk!" popped a Cockney voice—"the conk of a lord!" And he was up and away, and down the slope with the merriest spurt of laughter.

The Gentleman was on his feet in a second, pursuing, a smear of blood at his nose.

Knapp heard him.

"Chise me!" he called, and came swinging down the slope at his ease, a smug grin on his face.

He was the fastest man but one South of Thames that day, and how was he to know that one was after him?

If he was not aware of it, Kit, watching with all his eyes, was.

The Gentleman was hounding at the other's heels, swift, silent, terrible.

"Run!" screamed the boy.

The rifleman glanced over his shoulder.

"God A'mighty!" he yelled. "E's catchin me."

The light went out of his face. Fists and knees woke to sudden life and began to hammer furiously. The long easy swing became a terrific pitter-patter. Flinging back his head, he set himself to run the race of his life.

IV

Knapp was naked, and trained to a tick.

The Gentleman was the faster, and the slope helped his long legs; but he was booted and spurred.

Kit watched the smooth swoop of the one, and the terrific bob-a-bob- bob of the other. He was reminded of an eagle he had once seen stooping at a rabbit on the Cheviots.

Each was running for his all, and each knew it; but the Gentleman was having the best of it.

Knapp, running with his head as well as with his heels, was making straight for the creek.

On the flat, among the boulders, he, naked-nimble, would be on better terms with the booted Gentleman.

But—he would never get there. Kit saw it at a glance.

Down the hill he came with pounding fists, and great knees going. His head was flung back, his face screwed tight.

He had the lion's heart, this naughty little man. Death, swift and terrible, cast the shadow of its wings over him. He could not see it, but he could feel it overhead, swooping, swooping. He would not look back. His mistake made, he would do his desperate best to retrieve it. At least he would show the world how a Borderer can die.

Behind him the Gentleman, the wind in his hair, was feeling for his throat.

Another moment and that hub-bub of beating heart and running legs would stop for ever—skewered.

Kit could not bear it. Casting disguise aside, he leapt into the creek, and snatched a pebble.

"Chuck!" screamed the rifleman, and jinked like a hare.

Kit saw the gleam of a white waistcoat, and flung with all his might.

The pebble sped true as that which slew Goliath.

It took effect between the fourth and fifth button. Down went the Gentleman with a windy groan, as though the soul was being sucked out of his body.

Knapp, the pressure relieved, was his Cockney self again in a second. He swung on at a leisurely trot with the flick of heel, and swagger of elbow, peculiar to the crack taking his ease.

"Thank-ye!" he called, pert and patronising. "Lucky shot!"

"Run, fool, run!" yelled Kit. "The sentry!"

On the crest of the hill, against the sky-line, the sentry was kneeling as he took aim.

"What!—eh!—oh!—im?—blime!" and Knapp buckled to again in earnest.

The sentinel fired.

It was a long shot; but the man was a Grenadier of the Guard, and picked at that.

Up went Knapp's arms, and down into the creek he stumbled, there to fall on his face. Up again to run a little further; down once more; turned head over heels; up again and out of sight.

Kit's heart rose and fell with the little man.

What to make of it?—was he hard hit?—or was he at his eternal fooling once more?



CHAPTER LII

OLD TOADIE

I

He had no time for further questions. He must see to his own line of retreat.

The Gentleman was winded, and nothing more. The opening of the drain was discovered. No matter. It had done its work, or would have when once it had seen him home.

He clambered up the bank, brushed through the tamarisk, back into the comfortable darkness.

Thank heaven! Blob, the faithful, was still there.

He marked the cheerful gleam of the lantern, a tiny red spark in the darkness.

As he shuffled rapidly along he saw the patch of light on the floor beneath the man-hole.

But—was he mistaken?—or was not that patch, dim and dappled before, bright now as the moon?

He stopped. His heart was thumping so that he almost expected the covering drain to crack, and reveal him to the world.

Suddenly the patch vanished. All was darkness save the red eye of Blob's lantern far away.

Then that too went out.

The blackness was stifling, horrible. He opened his mouth to draw breath.

Then the light at the man-hole appeared again, shining now no longer on the floor, but on a man's head, bristling, and with huge ears.

Some one was squatting in the drain.

His heart that had been racing brought up bump.

"Any one there, Toadie?" came a voice through the man-hole.

"Only the boy," rumbled the man in the drain.

The words woke Kit to his position. With a ghastly effort he confirmed his mind and faced the situation.

There was one thing for it—to make for the opening, and trust his heels.

Better to be shot down in the open, anyway, than killed in the drain like a rabbit.

He turned round.

As he did so, a hand appeared at the opening, and swept back the tamarisk. A smiling face showed at the mouth of the drain.

"Tiger, Tiger, burning bright In the forest of the night,"

came the voice of a playful ogre. "Did you ever hear of a man called Blake, Little Chap? One of God's own."

As he said it, a door slammed violently; a great gust of wind rushed past the boy down the drain.

Blob, the faithful, had obeyed his orders.

The boy was alone in Hell, and the Devil was stalking him.

II

Kit turned round.

Under the man-hole squatted old Toadie. The light bathed his hunched shoulders, his receding forehead, his projecting teeth.

The horror of it, the darkness, here in the bowels of the earth, hidden from sun and wind and light of heaven, undid the boy.

He tried to scream and could not. He battered madly at the bricks, caging him like an iron destiny, and only hurt his hands.

Surely, surely God would hear him!

Toadie began to hop towards him—hop—hop—hop.

The boy was breathing stertorously through his nose, almost snorting. The saliva was dribbling down his chin. He sank in a heap against the bricks and said,

"Hullo!"

"Ello!" came a deep voice. "Feel sick?"

"I don't know," giggled the boy, crouching limp on the brick-floor.

He knew now what those rabbits he and Gwen had ferreted with glee felt, old Yellow Jack worming down the burrow after them.

Yes: it was nicer to ferret than to be ferreted.

Nicest of all perhaps to be the ferret and suck blood, suck blood, suck blood, glued between the eyes of your victim.

Again the boy giggled.

The horror was passing. It was only a nightmare now, too terrible to be true, and a familiar nightmare. To be hemmed in thus in darkness, an ogre creeping in upon him, he just a throbbing heart and breathing nostrils.... Often before ... in life, in death, in dreams.... He didn't know, and didn't greatly care.... Time to wake soon.... Mother or old Nan would knock in a minute.... This sort of dream always ended in that knock.

He beckoned to the hopping toad, smiling. They might just as well be friends. Mother's knock would disturb them soon enough.

A noise roused him from his waking death.

It was the shuffling of feet.

Old Toadie heard it too, and snarled across his shoulder.

"Who the hell's that?"

In the darkness there was a falling flash.

It was Blob; Blob, the brave, who had fulfilled his orders and more. Loyal to his brother-boy, he had slammed the door as bidden, and, himself, the wrong side of it, had come to Kit's assistance.

After all he was a boy, and was not the young gentleman a boy?—and is not all the world against boys?—Boys that must hold together, or they will surely all be lost. Kit heard and lived anew.

III

Before him in the darkness was a muffled tumult. Out of it came Blob's plaintive squeak,

"Give over squeegin"

And the bass reply,

_"I'll squeege your eart out !"

"Hullo! hullo! hullo!—what's forrad there?"_ came the Gentleman's echoing voice, as he crept towards them.

Kit scuffled down the drain, and tripped over a tumbling mass. It writhed; it stank; it was hot; it had two voices that growled and squeaked.

"Well done, Blob!" he panted. "Which is you?"

"Oi'm me," came a smothered treble from the heart of the tumble.

The boy's hand felt a shirt, warm and wet.

"Is that you?" prodding with his dirk.

"G-r-r, you young—"

Kit slid the dirk home. He was surprised to find how smoothly the steel ran in. It was not hard, then, to kill a man, and it was strangely pleasing.

The man shivered and relaxed.

"Is that old Toadie you've got there?" called the Gentleman, crawling leisurely along.

"It was."

"What you doing to him?"

"Killing him."

"Ah, well," said the Gentleman, "I never cared much for old. Toadie. We weren't simpatico. If you care to wait a minute I'll—"

"Can't," gasped Kit. "No time. Now, boy, hurry!"

Blob crawled out from beneath the dead man.

"Anudder pennorth for Blo-ub!" he gurgled, and added jealously, one hand on the corpse, "He's moine. Oi killed un first."

"Never mind about that! This way."

There was one chance and one only. The door blocked one end; the Gentleman the other; the only exit was the man-hole. They must risk it.

"Here, Blob!—up here!—quick now!—give us a leg!"

Blob gave him a heave. Up he went into the light, like a cork from a bottle. Staying himself on his elbows, he hung, half in the hole, half out of it, the light dazzling him.

A roar of laughter smote him in the heart.

Blinking, he looked about him.

Above waved the sycamores, breeze-stirred and dark, and walling him round, the Gap Gang.

Kit's first thought was to drop.

Two soft arms seized him from behind; a sickening breath was on his cheek; a smooth face pressed his; and a fawning treble was saying in his ear with appalling tenderness,

"Let ole George elp you, Lovey."



CHAPTER LIV

THE PARSON'S AGONY

I

The Parson stamped up and down the loft, gnawing his thumb.

Those long shots from the rear had ceased half an hour ago. A tall Grenadier drooped across the wall. How should he have known there was one in the cottage could reach out a fatal finger and tap him on the forehead at two hundred yards?

The Parson's jolly face was haggard.

Now and then he peered out of the seaward window, listening. On the knoll all was still. He could see nothing, could hear nothing. Blue Knickers had withdrawn; he could mark no prowling figures. Only among the tree-trunks a pale wisp of smoke meandered upwards, telling of a camp-fire behind.

About him was the drowsy buzz-z-z of an August noon. A cabbage butterfly sailed by. The creature's insufferable airs annoyed him. The fate of Nelson, the life of a noble lad, these were nothing to it, curse it for its callousness!

The minutes passed. The silence was so oppressive that he could hear it. It stifled him.

What an age the boy was! Good heavens!—he could have got to the mouth of the drain and back half-a-hundred times by now! What was the delay?—Things must have gone awry! Yet how could they?—It was always the way! There was no trusting any living soul but yourself! Why the devil couldn't he be in two places at once?—It was damnable!

He pulled himself together with a jerk.

Here he was becoming unjust, irritable, womanish; everything he had always most despised in a man of action.

A shout came to him from seaward.

A shot followed.

The perspiration started to his forehead. He ran to the ladder-head.

In the dimness below he could see the old foretop-man sitting alert beside the black square of the open trap.

Piper was stooping forward, one great hand curved at his ear, listening intently.

"Piper!"

"Sir."

"All well below there?"

"Well, sir, I'm not justly sure. A minute back I seemed to feel like a gush o wind—"

"Then hail the boy, man!"

"Boy Hoad! below there!" in stentorian tones.

The only answer was a rush of air through the open trap, and the muffled slam of a door, house-shaking.

II

The Parson ran down into the cellar.

Blob's lantern glimmered on the floor, but there was no Blob.

He felt the door, cold to his hands as a corpse. It was shut fast as death. The catch had snapped; but the bolts were not home.

His first impulse was to open; his second to refrain. A man with a musket anywhere in the drain could not miss him. And he once down, the door open, all was over!—the cottage stormed, the despatches taken, old man Piper slain, and Nelson lost.

His ear against the clammy iron, he listened. Yes; outside the door he could detect the sound of faint breathing.

A distance away, he could hear the scuffling of feet.

He saw it all. They had shot Blob, who lay without, breathing his last. The door, left unguarded, had slammed, and they were nabbing Kit and Knapp in the drain.

His hand was upon the catch once more. Should he go?—dared he stay?

His spirit wrought within him.

Strong man though he was, he was whimpering in the darkness.

To slink behind that iron door was eternal shame; to go was inevitable ruin. Could he save his own old skin at the cost of that boy's? And yet he could not get away from the remorseless fact that to save his own skin might be to save his country.

His agony was short but terrible. The patriot prevailed over the man. The discipline of twenty years' soldiering had taught him life's hardest lesson—to sacrifice his feelings to his duty. He made his choice, and chose the path that has always seemed best to Englishmen in such case.

He slammed the bolts home.

He was up the ramp in a moment, and had banged the trap-door behind him.

Old Piper turned from the loop-hole.

"Seems there's summat up yonder behind the trees, sir. I yeard—Ah! what'll that be?"

From behind the knoll came a sudden holloa, then an uproarious burst of laughter.

"They've got em, by God!" The old man swung his chair about with lion- like eyes. "By your leave, sir, you must go to them lads."

The Parson was tearing off coat and cravat.

"I'm going.... I'll slip out of the dormer-window so as to leave the door shut."

He sped up the ladder, and down again in a twinkling.

"Here are the despatches! If I go down, it'll take em ten minutes to rush the place and give you time to burn the papers. Here are my pistols! one for the first Frenchman, and t'other—well, you're a better man than I am, Piper, you know what's right, but—"

"I'll trust my Maker before the Gap Gang," said the old man. "He'll understand.... Good-bye, sir. God help you."

"He will," cried the Parson. "It's His battle. Good-bye, Piper. I'm cut to the heart to leave you. But—"

He was up the ladder and out of the window in a moment, stealing across the greensward, Polly in one hand, and Knapp's bugle in the other.

No spatter of fire greeted him from the knoll; no flitting figures retreated before him. All was peace, and the fair breeze ruffling the sycamores.

The Gap Gang were at some bloody business behind the trees.



CHAPTER LV

PRETTY POLLY-KISS-ME-QUICK

Kit's life stopped short.

"That's one on em. Where's t'other?" growled Beardie.

"Oi'm here," said Blob, and thrust up, pink and impassive, in his cheek an obvious slice of apple.

"That's right," said Fat George in sleek, caressing voice. "Give the genelman your and, my dear. He'll elp you out. There you are! There's no call for you to be scared. You're among old friends."

The Gang had gathered round the hole.

Beardie on his hands and knees was peering down into the drain.

Then he threw up his head with a savage roar.

"My God! they've done old Toadie."

He burst through the crowd at the boy, eyes and beard ablaze.

Kit, tight-clutched in Fat George's arms, shut his eyes.

There flashed before his mind a lonely figure, bound and buffeted in the palace of a high-priest eighteen hundred years ago. He saw it, patient among its persecutors, with the eyes of perfect vision, and grew strangely calm and comforted.

These evil men appeared to him in a clearer, a purer light. For one splendid second he was sorry for them.

"Father, forgive them," he prayed, and added aloud, "Good-bye, Blob."

The voice at his ear brought him back from heaven.

"Stidy, Beardie!—You're spiling sport. Ave the Mossoos twigged anything up?"

"Nay," said Dingy Joe. "They're a'ter the naked chap."

"Then we've got this little bit o business all to ourselves, the Genelmen o the Gap Gang ave. Let's take im up among the trees, and gag im first."

Was God in heaven? would He allow it?

As though in answer, close at hand a bugle sounded.

The boy had a vision of a winged figure, sword in hand, swooping wrathfully down upon them.

Surely he knew it—that swoop, that sword, that splendid rage.

It was St. Michael, the Archangel, in the famous picture by Guido Reni, a copy of which hung in the drawing-room at home.

"Remember the crew o the Curlew, men!" roared a mighty voice.

The arms about the boy loosened.

"The sogers!" shrilled Fat George, and bolted with a scream.

The rest followed in cataract rout. They pelted past the lad, bellowing, bleating: a tumult of arms, legs, aweful eyes in aweful faces. Only Beardie had the strength of mind to aim a smashing blow at the boy's head as he fled, and he missed.

"Make for the cottage, boys!" thundered the Parson, storming by. "Oh, Polly, my love and my lady!" and his sword flashed and sang and swept against the sky.

"Grenadiers!" rang an imperious voice from out of the ground.

Kit jumped round.

The Gentleman's head was thrust through the manhole; his eyes sweeping the greensward.

Fighting Fitz had seized the situation in a glance. Could he thrust his Grenadiers between the boys and the cottage, victory was his.

Lifting himself on his hands, his head thrown back, he sent the singing voice that the veterans of the Prussian Guard had heard at Marengo out of the cloud as Kellerman's Green Brigade roared down on them—he sent it swinging over grass and knoll,

"A la maison, mes enfants!"

Kit did not hesitate. Dirk in hand, he leapt at the head flashing in the sun. Here, in the heat and hell of battle, he had no thought of mercy.

The Gentleman heard the patter of his coming, and swept about.

"Sold again, Little Chap!" he laughed, and bobbed underground.

The chance was gone. There was not a second to be lost.

"This way, Blob!" yelled the boy, and dashed up the knoll, making for the cottage.



CHAPTER LVI

THE RACE FOR THE COTTAGE

I

And it was full time.

As he stormed up the knoll, he heard upon his right the clink of arms, and the sound of a Frenchman shouting.

Down through the sheltering sycamores he plunged, and burst out into the open.

A tall Grenadier, who had been sentry upon the shingle-bank, was racing up on his right across the greensward, screaming as he ran.

His yells were of effect. Half a dozen ragged ruffians bobbed up from behind the broken wall in the rear, and seeing only the boys, made fiercely for them.

It was a race for the cottage; and the door of the cottage was shut.

That dead mask of wood stared at Kit blankly. Had it no eyes? no soul? no understanding? was it not English, heart of oak, its life sucked these centuries from the breast of the same mother? could it not feel his agony?

"Piper! Piper! the door's shut!"

"Ay, sir, but it wun't be drackly-minute," came a straining voice from within; and the boy could hear the rending of torn boards, and the splintering of terrific hatchet-work.

The Grenadier with set teeth and blue-black muzzle was launching forward with huge strides.

Kit could hear the rattle of his cartridge-pouch flopping as he ran.

Would the door open? if so, which would reach it first?

"Faster, Blob, faster!"

"Oi'd run faaster, if ma legs would," panted Blob, lumbering behind.

He was doing his best; but he was no match for the fawn-footed gentleman, who led him. Lumps of ghostly clay, inherited from a long line of furrow-following ancestors, clung to his heels, impeding him.

Kit gripped his dirk and ran.

His eyes were on the Grenadier, a black and yellow fellow, with a wart between the brows. That wart held Kit's imagination. It sickened him. It was just his luck to have to deal with a warted man, when he had always loathed warts! But for the wart he felt he could have been heroic.

At the thought the tide of his humour welled within him; and the Grenadier was amazed to see a smile in the eyes of this boy with the long face, ghastly-pale, racing against him.

Taken off his guard, he smiled too.

So each ran towards the other, whom he meant to kill, with smiling eyes.

II

The cottage door began to open slowly, so slowly.

The boy could see the old foretop-man in the darkened passage. A hatchet was in his mouth; he was handling the door with one hand, and his chair with the other.

So easy for a whole man to open the door, so hard for the disabled seaman!

The Grenadier, hounding with huge strides, was already almost there.

"Man on your left, Piper!" the boy screamed.

"All right, sir!" mumbled the old seaman. "Give me cutlass room—all I ask!"

He put both hands to the wheels of his chair, and spun out into the open, hatchet in mouth.

As he did so, round the corner of the cottage swooped half a dozen yelling cut-throats.

"Take the Frenchman, sir!" roared the old man. "I'll tackle these—"

With a wrench, he slewed his chair, spun the wheels furiously, and shocked into the cloud of them.

The Grenadier launched at his back, bayonet at the charge.

"Coward!" gasped Kit, still five yards away, and flung his dirk.

It stuck in the ground at the man's feet, and tripped him. He plunged forward on hands and knees, and gathered himself as a wave about to break.

As he rose, Kit leapt on him, naked-handed.

The man was hurled through the open door, and brought up against the inner wall with an appalling shock.

For a moment man and boy hugged cheek to cheek.

Kit's legs were round the other's hips, his arms about the other's neck.

"Beast! don't bite!" he gurgled, as the man munched his shoulder; and the image of Gwen, who when hard-driven used her teeth effectively, rose before him.

The image faded. The man had the under-grip, and was squeezing his soul out. Another moment, and his ribs must go.

"Blob!" he choked.

A dark something shot through the door and shocked against the Frenchman.

"Where'll Oi kill him?" asked a voice.

"Where you like," muttered Kit, swooning.

A hand rose and fell.

The man relaxed his grip. Kit could feel him fading and fading away, as the life oozed out of him. He was a-horse on Death.

"Assez," muttered the Frenchman sleepily, swayed and fell.

Dazed and dizzy, Kit staggered to his feet.

A shadow darkened the door; a strange voice cried in horrible triumph:

"Our'n!"

Two pistols lay on the table. Blindly the boy snatched both.

"Now!" he said, as one in a dream, and, shoving a pistol against the man's bare and shaggy bosom, fired.

Blindly he stepped over the fellow's body, and out into the open.

A man, on hands and knees, was crawling away round the corner of the cottage; another lay dead on his face across the way.

Before him he saw a little cloud of men, and the gleam of a silver head thrusting out moon-like from among them.

Blindly he fired into the brown, and blindly followed up.

One man fell; others slunk away, snarling.

III

The whole thing was over.

Buzzing August prevailed again.

"Are you hurt?" sobbed Kit.

"No, sir, I'm bravely, thank you. Properly shook up, though." The old man was heaving like the sea. "They'd no knives nor nothin, only one on em, and Boy Hoad stuck him as he passed. They hurt emselves more'n me. I bluv I'm a better man above the waist nor ever I were. All the juice like goes to my arms now I've no legs—that's how I reck'n it be."

"We must get in before they come again. Quick!"

"Ah, they won't come again, sir. Easy satisfied, the Gap Gang. Got no guts because they got no God.... Ah, here's Mr. Joy!"

The Parson was coming across the greensward, high and mighty as a turkey-cock.

The Gentleman was standing among the sycamores, laughing.

He waved his hand to the boy.

"Congratulations, Little Chap," he called.

"Don't accept em," snarled the Parson. "Posing impostor!—coxcomb!— cad!"

"What! has he wounded you, sir?" asked old Piper.

"Pinked me in the calf, the coward!" snapped the Parson. "He's not a gentleman. I always knew he wasn't!—Frenchified feller!"

He looked round with grim satisfaction.

"So you've been busy, too. I reckon they're half a dozen short o what they were before the sally. And we've got our man through, too!"

He pointed across the plain.

From the foot of the Downs a string of Grenadiers were coming back at the double.

They had no prisoner.



III

THE SHADOW OF THE WOMAN



CHAPTER LVII

THE PARLEY

I

The door was shut, and all once again darkness in the cottage of the kitchen.

Something slithering along the floor caught Kit's ear.

Then he saw that Blob had by the collar the Grenadier he had killed, and with groanings and pantings and strange animal noises, was hauling his victim towards the dark mouth of the cellar.

"Leave him alone," called Kit sternly. "D'you call that a respectable way to treat the dead?" He laid a piece of sacking over the corpse, adding—"That'll do to cover him up till we can bury him properly."

"But Oi don't want un buried," whined Blob. "Oi be goin to keep un agin the fifth o Novambur—guy for Bloub!"

"You're going to do no such thing, you disgusting little beast. You'll get your tuppence, and you don't deserve that."

"Ah," said Blob cunningly, "this un'll be worth a little better'n tuppence surely. You knaw who he be, Maaster Sir?"

"Who then?"

Blob dropped his voice to a mysterious whisper.

"Squoire Nabowlin. Mus. Poiper tall me."

"Who?"

"Squoire Nabowlin," reiterated the boy. "Nabowlin Bounabaardie—the top Frenchie. See the legs on him! red and gold and buttons and all."

II

The Gentleman was sauntering across the grass towards the cottage, his hands behind him.

The Parson brushed aside the mattress, and thrust out, snarling.

"Keep your distance, sir, or take the consequences."

The Gentleman strolled forward.

"Ah, there you are, Padre. I came to have a little chat."

"Stand fast then, and state your business!—This is war, not play- acting. I hate your silly swagger."

"Well, in the first place I thought you might care to know that your man's through."

"Thank you for nothing. Knew that already."

"But you know—there's always a little but in this world—hateful word, isn't it?—but, but, but—he's too late."

"What ye mean?"

"I mean that Nelson reached Dover last night, and sails this afternoon. The Medusa'll be off here at dawn if this breeze holds."

Dover!

The Parson had forgotten Dover. Chatham, the Admiralty, Merton! in his note he had urged Beauchamp to send messengers post-haste to all three; but Dover!

"That's all right," he called calmly. "I've a galloping express half- way there by now, thank ye."

The other shook his head with a grave smile.

"It's sixty miles in a bee-line from Lewes to Dover, and plenty of public-houses on the road. No Englishman could do it under eight hours on a hot day. If your romance-man gets there by midnight, he'll do well—and still be hours too late."

The Parson remained unmoved.

"It makes no odds," he called loftily. "If you want to know, Nelson's not in England."

"Is he not? where is he then?"

"Why, where he ought to be—hammering the Combined Squadron somewhere St. Vincent way."

"How d'you know?"

"He's my cousin on my father's side. I heard from his mother only— only—"

"By last night's mail!" suggested the Gentleman. "May I ask then why you trouble to send a galloping express to Dover to stop him?"

The Parson's face darkened. He thrust forward.

"And may I ask how you know Nelson got to Dover last night?"

The other shrugged.

"I have agents."

The Parson nodded grimly.

"Yes; I've a list of em."

"Your countrymen, my friends"—with a malicious little bow—"the Friends of Freedom."

The Parson leaned out, black as night.

"Friends of Freedom be d——-d!" he thundered—"bloody traitors!"

The other raised a shocked hand.

"Holy Padre! Reverend Father! Virginibus puerisque, if you please."

The Parson turned to find Kit at his elbow.

"I'm only a deacon," he grumbled. And it's only what you French gentry call a fashion de polly."

"I am not French—or only on my mother's side," replied the other gently.

"Well, Frenchified then—it's all the same, ain't it?—all that bowin and scrapin and humbuggin business—you know what I mean."

"Yes, yes, I know, my polished friend.... And as to these same couleur-de-rose gentry I understand your feelings entirely, and for the very good reason that I share them. And I don't mind telling you in confidence that as to the bulk of them your description is not too highly-coloured."

"And if they're that, what are you, I'd like to know?" shouted the Parson.

"I am an Irishman. I serve my country—I do not sell her."

"And are all Irishmen traitors?"

A gleam came into the other's eyes. He smiled frostily.

"All who are worthy of the name," he said....

"But to return to our sheep. They have served me, these sanguinary gentlemen, so I can't stand by and see them hanged, when I can save em. And to put it shortly—I want that despatch-bag, please!"

He came forward like a child, hand outstretched, and smiling charmingly.

The Parson flung out a finger and volleyed laughter.

"And he thinks he's going to get it! Ask pretty; don't forget to say please; and he shall have everything he wants, he shall, he shall. There's a lambkin! there's a little lovey!" He leaned out again. "And what you going to give us for it?"

"Why, a free pass-out, with all the honours of war."

"Thank you for nothing. Seems to me I can have a free pass-out whenever I like. I've just free-passed out a man. And I'm only a minute or two back myself from a little stroll with a lady."

III

The Gentleman sauntered forward.

"I am sorry to be so importunate," he said gravely, "but I must have those despatches and I mean to have them."

He stopped.

"The position is this: Nelson is mine." He brought down his right fist on his left. "Nothing can save him now—nothing. This time to-morrow, so sure as that sun will rise, he will be dead or on the way to Verdun. That has been arranged."

"How?" thundered the Parson. "How has it been arranged?"

The Gentleman was pacing to and fro before the window; and his eyes were down.

"It's enough for you to know," he said at last, "that I—I have influence with a lady, who—who has influence with Nelson."

"What does he mean?" whispered Kit.

The Parson had turned very white.

He knew that woman, by nature so noble; and he knew something of her history—the history of the shame of man.

"D'you mean to tell me She's going to sell her Nelson to that organ-grinder's monkey from Corsica?" he roared. "Because if you'll tell me that, I'll tell you you're a liar."

The Gentleman still paced before the window.

"I'll tell you nothing of the sort," he said. "She believes herself to be serving her country." He was speaking very slowly, almost mincing his words. "She has—has come into possession of information...."

The man, usually so self-possessed, stuttered and stopped dead.

"And how did she come into possession of that information, I wonder?" asked the Parson, slow and white.

The Gentleman flashed his face up.

"I'll put it in brutal English so that even you can understand. I made a fool of a woman who thought she was making a fool of me."

There was a lengthy silence.

"And they call him the Gentleman!" came the Parson's voice at last— "the Gentleman!"

The other had resumed his pacing.

"He sneaks himself into the confidence of a lady," continued the Parson quietly. "He conceals his identity—"

Again the other flashed his eyes up.

"I did not!" he shouted, hammering with his hand. "The first words I ever spoke to her in the drawing-room at Merton were to tell her who I was. That night she told Pitt over his port. And Pitt told her—but there!—I needn't go into that.... And when she asked me what brought me to Merton, I answered truthfully—'Love of adventure and the fairest face in Europe.'"

The Parson leaned out.

"I understand you now. You take advantage of that face of yours; you worm yourself into the confidence of a woman, a noble woman; and you—"

The Gentleman blazed appalling eyes up at him.

"And you have not seen my Ireland suffer!"

The Parson quailed before the white blast of the other's anger. It was as though a hail of lightnings had struck him.

"His Ireland! ass!" was the only retort he could think of.

"Nelson then let us put aside," continued the other, cold again. "There remain—you and the despatches. I want the despatches. You want yourselves. Shall we exchange?"

"No, we shan't," snapped the Parson.

"I know your straits," continued the other. "You're short of provisions—"

"Short of provisions!" guffawed the Parson. "Why, step this way, and I'll show you a boy with the bellyache."

"And short of men," the other continued, quite himself again. "What does your garrison consist of?—one holy padre, one half an old sailor, Monsieur Mooncalf, and Little Chap."

"And what's your own lot?" bellowed the Parson—"one dozen of sweepings of France, one dozen of the picked scum of our country, and one conceited young whipper-snapper, who swaggers about in breeches and boots all day and was never on a horse in his life to my certain knowledge!"

The Gentleman waved his hand.

"Take the consequences then," he said. "A rivederci."

"Take the consequences yourself!" roared the Parson—"you and your river dirties. I'll see your friends hung high as Haman yet."

The other shook his head.

"You won't live to see that, dear man," he said quietly, and turned away.



CHAPTER LVIII

THE PLANK CAPONIER

Kit was in the cellar stripping his belt and cartridge-pouch from Blob's Grenadier.

As he rose from his knees Piper hailed him.

"Mr. Joy callin you, sir."

The boy ran up the ramp. The old man, handling his musket, was peering through the Northward loop-hole.

"What is it?"

"Summat up yonder, sir."

The boy raced up the ladder.

The Parson was at the dormer looking towards the Downs, shimmering now in the fair evening.

"What's the meaning of this?" he said, pointing.

A great Sussex wain, top-heavy with hay, was drawing out of a farmyard among trees, a quarter of a mile away. A white horse was in the shafts, and a black in the lead. Two Grenadiers were at the head of the black leader, who was giving trouble. Others in shirt-sleeves were mounting to the top of the load.

"Old Gander's wain," said the Parson. "That's old mare Jenny in the shafts, and her three-year-old daughter in the lead. Ha, Miss Blossom!—That's your sort!—Knock em sprawling!—Teach the Mossoos to handle an English lady!"

A tall man ran out of the farmyard, a snow-storm of white-frocked children pursuing him; and even at that distance Parson and boy could hear them screaming laughter. The tall man snatched up one and kissed her. Then he took off his hat with an enormous sweep to the others, and turned.

"Humph! posing rather prettily this time!" muttered the Parson, watching kind-eyed.

On the top of the wain, clear against the sky, a tall figure now rose, and gathered the rope-reins in his hand.

The men at the leader's head jumped aside.

Up she went, sky-high.

The coachman handled her as a mother handles a wilful child. The wind was towards them, and they could hear him singing to her.

"Hum! he can handle the ribands a bit," muttered the Parson, watching intently. "Miss Blossom's never tasted a bit before."

The filly dropped, and flung forward with the shock of a breaking wave.

The slope was with them. The old mare, with snarling head and backward ears, broke into a lumbering trot, snatching at her daughter's tail. The wain began to gather weigh, creaking, jolting, jerking along.

The filly was tearing into her collar; the old mare, swept along by the pursuing wain, broke into a heavy gallop. The Gentleman, holding them hard, was singing to them as they came.

"Mean mischief, sir," called Piper from below.

"Jove, they do!" muttered the Parson, chin forward, and eyes flaming as he watched. "Like a Horse Artillery battery coming into action."

The wain leapt and swung and bounced along like a live thing.

"Ah, I thought so.... Pace too good.... He's dropping his load.... Ah!—there goes another!"

A Grenadier was seen to fall with flapping tails, and another, and another; till the track of the thundering wain was strewn with men, who picked themselves up and pursued.

Only the intrepid coachman, his feet set deep, held his place, swaying to the swing of the wain.

The Parson gnawed his lip as he watched.

"What's it all mean, Piper?"

"Don't justly know what to make of it, sir."

"You can't get a line on him?"

"No, sir. He's slewed aside out o my range."

And indeed the Gentleman had swung his team to the left, as though to avoid the old man's fire. They were lurching along at a thundering gallop. It seemed as though the horses were fleeing from the wain.

The Parson was leaning far out of the window to watch.

"Round he comes!"

As he spoke, the Gentleman flung back with all his strength, and wrenched to the right.

Round came the leader; the wheeler, slithering, jerking, almost swept off her legs, as the wain came on top of her. Then the whole came thundering across the greensward at the gable-end of the cottage.

"Ca'ant be going to ram us, sir, surely?" shouted Piper.

The old man could see nothing now, but he could hear the roar of the approaching wain.

"I believe he is!" cried the Parson.

It was the boy's swift mind that first leapt to the Gentleman's plan.

"No, sir!" he screamed. "Don't you see?—He'll bring the waggon alongside at a gallop, jam it against the wall, and then——"

And then! the Parson saw it in a flash:—axemen at work on the door beneath the wain, and stormers through the dormer-window over the top.

"By God, you've got it!"

It must be stopped at all costs.

But how?

The wain was coming at the cottage from the flank. A shot from the left shoulder at an impossible angle at a galloping target—was that their only hope?

The Parson glanced wildly round.

The thunder of the wain and the singing voice of the coachman was in his ears.

An old plank was lying in the loft.

"Plank Caponier!" he yelled, pounced on it, and thrust it out of the window. "Now, Kit!—You're lightest!—There's your musket—loaded!— Blob, sit on this end with me!"

Kit, musket in hand, ran out on the plank.

He was standing on air.

"Steady!" hoarsed the Parson, blue eyes gleaming through the window. "Don't look down! Aim at her chest! Wait till you can see the roll of her eye!"

Kit heard nothing, saw nothing, but a foam-splashed breast, a nodding head, racing knees, and reaching feet.

All the world for him was in that black and shining bosom. It grew upon him as he looked. It was no more a chest. It was a cloud, about to burst on the world. He fired into the heart of it, sure he could not miss.