CHAPTER XLIII_The Gentleman: A Romance of the Sea

A BLACK BORDERER TO THE RESCUE

A boy was wading shoreward dizzily. As he surged through the water,

his body made long rippling waves. He watched them with dull

fascination, pointing.

Then he began to whimper peevishly. He was tired, he was cold. The

shore waved up and down before his eyes. He knew he couldn't do it.

From behind him a yell penetrated his dying mind.

It stopped him dead.

He was a little child, nightmare-bound.

Waving to and fro, the water to his knees, he stretched both arms

shoreward.

"Mother!" he wailed.

A shout answered him.

Some one was crashing down the shingle, racing across the sand, and

plunging through the water towards him.

The boy began to titter.

"Come on, Kit! come on!" came a rousing voice. "Don't look behind you!

That's the style! Come on!"

What was this black splashing figure, sword in hand? Was it the Angel

of Death in full regimentals? Surely he recognised the face beneath

the shako?

"You aren't mother," the boy giggled, swaying.

A strong arm was round him; a body, firm and full of life, was pressed

against his dying one; a voice, quickening as the Spring, was in his

ear.

"Splendid, Kit! Well done indeed! Lean on me. Lots o time."

"Have the soldiers come?" sobbed the boy, struggling forward.

"One has," came the sturdy voice--"a Black Borderer."

They waded through the shallows, the ripples breaking prettily about

them.

Behind them a fierce voice sang out an order.

The galley, which had brought up with a bump against the submerged

longboat, had hoisted the Gentleman on board, and was swooping in

pursuit.

The boy heard the beat of the oars, and sank on his knees at the edge

of the sea.

"I can't, sir. Take the bag. O go on!"

Two strong arms clutched him, and he was hoisted up.

All things were swimming away from him.

The last thing he knew was that he was in somebody's arms, and the

somebody was running.

The boat swept shoreward.

A man with a musket, standing in the bows, was about to fire at the

fugitives.

A sharp voice stayed him.

"_Ne tirez point! Nous les prendrons vivants. Ce n'est qu'un seul

homme et le gosse._"

A bugle from the shingle-bank retorted defiantly.

"_Halte!_"

The boat stopped short.

The crew looked over their shoulders.

_"Les soldats!"_

Upon the ridge a shako bobbed up.

A figure in uniform rose and ran at it

"Keep your eads down there all along the line!" it shouted. "Wait till

I give the word, Royal Stand-backs."

The Gentleman sprang up in the boat.

_"Ramez toujours, mes enfants!_" he cried. "_C'est une

ruse!_"

The men hung on their oars.

"_Laches!_" cried the Gentleman, smote the man on the foremost

thwart a buffet, and leaping overboard floundered through the water.

The man in the bows fired.

There was no reply from the shingle-bank.

The men of the galley took courage. The boat swished through the

shallows, and bumped ashore.

Out tumbled her crew, and stormed across the sand at the heels of the

Gentleman.

The Parson was staggering up the shingle-bank, the boy in his arms.

At the top he paused, heaving like an earthquake, and looked back on

his scampering pursuers.

"Yes, my beauties," he panted. "You just won't do it."

Knapp, keen as a terrier, bobbed up at his side.

"Shall I charge em, sir?" his little brown eyes bursting with desire--

"me and the boy. Down the ill and into em plippety-plumpety-plop! O

for God's sake, sir!" whimpering, dancing. "Ave mercy as you ope for

it. Let me ave me smack if it's only for the glory of the old

rigiment."

"Certainly not," said the Parson sternly. "This is war, not

tomfoolery."

The little man collapsed sullenly.

"_From the right--retire by companies--on your sup-ports!_"

shouted the Parson in measured regimental voice.

From his manner he might have been addressing a Brigade and not merely

Blob, disguised in an ancient shako, lying on his stomach, and armed

with a hay-rake.

III

He plunged down the bank.

As he reached the greensward a warning shout from the cottage reached

him.

"Ha! what's this?" joggled the Parson sharply. "Flank attack! who the

pest? Oh, Gap Gang--I forgot."

A stream of fierce dark figures with running legs poured down the Wish

and across the greensward at him.

"Hold tight round my neck, Kit!" he panted, taut to meet the new

attack. "I want my sword-arm free. What! the boy's fainted!" He gave

the limp body a hoist on his shoulder. "Now, Knapp! Let's see these

guts o yours!"

Knapp shot by him, his arms working like piston-rods.

"Come on, Blob, me boy. Slaughder for somebody!" He pranced into

action, throwing his legs like a hackney trotter. "Pray, duckie

darlins, pray!" he called. "I'm a-comin! I'm a-comin! I'm a-comin!"

The life was bursting out of him. It made him laughing-mad. He was

lusty as a young lion.

"Here they come!" muttered the Parson, labouring behind.

And come they did at a hound-slink, bunched together, and babbling. It

was clear they were uncertain of each other and of success. Sin, the

mighty Disintegrator, was at work upon their spirits. A more half-

hearted crew of blackguards never attempted murder. They needed Black

Diamond. He, and he alone, might have held them and swung them, as a

fine horseman holds and swings a refuser at a fence.

And what dark faces! what dreadful eyes! what voices popping up like

foul bubbles from a sewage pond!

_"Them three all?"

"Enough too, ain't it?"

"I'm for gain back. Look at the face on that buster with the sword!"

"H'into em!"_ came a shrill treble from the rear. _"Cheerily,

chaps, cheerily!"_

A crack from the cottage, the crack of doom.

The leading ruffian, a lumbering great horse-faced fellow, clapped his

hand to his side.

_"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

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

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.

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

"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."

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 _à 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.

_Coûte que coûte_, 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

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 depôt 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."

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."

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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,

"_À 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

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.

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

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."

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