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.

Up went the filly, fighting the air.

The boy saw her belly, her thighs, and the swish of her tail between

her hocks.

Down she came in roaring ruin, the old mare an avalanche of snow

burying her.

"In, Kit!" screamed the Parson.

"No, sir!" yelled the boy.

In a blinding light he saw the thing to do, and flashed to do it.

"The lynch-pins!"

Down he jumped, and dirk in hand raced for the tangle of horseflesh,

black and white and heaving like an angry sea.

Swift as he was, the Gentleman was swifter.

Before the boy had touched ground, he was down from his perch,

slashing at the tackle with his sword. Now he leapt to the mare's

head, hurling her back into her breeching.

While Kit was yet twenty yards away, he was up again, standing on the

shafts, reins in hand.

"Now, my lady!" came the high singing voice.

The brave old thing answered to it as though to a lover. She flung

forward with a sob.

"I'll take the mare and the man!" panted the Parson, racing up behind,

his curls almost cracking. "You go for the lynch-pins!"

He swept past, Polly in hand.

"Forgive me, Jenny!" he cried; and thrust home.

A spout of blood seemed to darken the sky, and deluge all. The wain

brought up with a dreadful jerk.

"Home, sir, if you can!" shouted Piper from his loop-hole. "Here's the

Grannydears!"

"Kit!" bawled the Parson. "Where are you?"

The lad crept out from under the wain.

"Got the lynch-pins?"

"Yes."

"Then come on!"

Under the fore-wheel the Gentleman was lying on his back, with closed

eyes.

The boy stopped.

"Are you hurt, sir?"

The other shook a smiling head.

"Only shocked. Jerked off my box. Run, Little Chap, run!--or they'll

bottle you."

"Kit, damn you!" stormed the Parson. "_Will_ you run?"

Across the greensward half a dozen Grenadiers were hurling. The

nearest dropped on his knee, and took deliberate aim at the boy.

The loop-hole clouded suddenly.

Out of it Death spoke.

The Grenadier toppled over on to his back with flapping hands. A

moment he sat bolt-erect, a foolish-familiar look on his face--Kit

somehow expected him to put his tongue out--then collapsed ghastly.

The boy made for the cottage.

Blob, leaning out of the dormer, chewing an apple, watched him with

spiteful amusement.

"Say, Maaster Sir," he cried, as he spat and slobbered, "reck'n

they'll catch you."

"Shall I unbolt the door, sir?" shouted Piper.

"You do, by God!" roared the wrathful Parson. "They're on our heels,

fool!"

"How'll you manage then, sir?"

"Leave that to me, and stick to your shooting!"

A great water-butt stood at the corner, empty now.

The Parson, man of myriad resource, had trundled it beneath the

dormer, and turned it upside down in a second.

"Up, boy!"

Kit was on it, and in through the window in a twinkle. The Parson

followed.

The leading Grenadier came at him, bayonet at the charge. The Parson

put the steel aside with his blade, and met the man fair in the face

with his heel.

"Good punch!" he cried cheerily, and kicking the butt away from under

him, scrambled into the loft.

He stood awhile both hands on his knees, heaving. Then he looked up,

his blue eyes good and grinning.

"Prettiest thing I ever saw in my life!" he panted. "But, you young

scaramouch! what the deuce d'you mean by stopping to chatter to that

chap?"

"I thought he was hurt," gasped the boy panting against the wall.

"He's my friend."

CHAPTER LIX

MISS BLOSSOM

"Pistol, please."

The Gentleman was standing beneath the dormer, one hand uplifted.

The Parson looked down at him.

"Well, you're a calm chap," he said with slow delight.

Better than anything in the world he loved a brave man.

"I know my man," replied the other in the same still voice.

He was far away in April twilight-land.

The fine face, gay as the morning a few minutes since, had now a

wistful evening look. The shadows had fallen on it: rain was not far.

Even the Parson, blind-eyed Englishman that he was, noticed it, and

was touched. After all the man was a boy, and a beaten boy.

"Are you hurt?" he gruffed.

"No--not hurt."

The Parson thought he understood.

"It was the pluckiest attempt I ever saw!" he cried with the

generosity of the victor. "That black filly had never known the feel

of a collar, till twenty minutes since.... I was to have broken her

this autumn."

"She was the least bit awkward at the start," mused the other. "But

she handled sweetly all the same."

"We had all the luck," continued the Parson. "But for that plank,

you'd have brought it off. It'll be your turn next time!"

The other lifted his face swiftly.

"Ah, no," he cried, "you mistake. _That's_ nothing! It's

_this!_"

He pointed.

Fifty yards away the wain lay wrecked on the greensward, the old white

mare crumpled in the shafts. She was stone-dead, and her muzzle, with

its coarse long hairs, was resting on the quarters of her daughter.

"That's the worst of war," said the Gentleman in that remote voice of

his. "_We_ know; _they_ don't."

"I expect it's all fairer than it seems," said the Parson huskily.

The other nodded.

"Have you a pistol?"

The filly was not dead. Lying on her side, she was lifting her head

and craning back to gaze at her dead dam.

Something clutched the Parson by the throat. A veil was rent. For a

moment he seemed to see the tragedy as the man beneath him saw it--the

passion, the pathos of that blind suffering in the cause of another.

"Here!" he said hoarsely, handing down a pistol.

The Gentleman took it, and seeing a pale face peering behind the

other's shoulder,

"She's not suffering, I think. Don't look, Little Chap."

He walked back to the filly.

Lying still now, her head along the greensward, she watched him

coming; snorting through full-blown nostrils.

He knelt at her head, pulling her ear, and caressing her.

"There, then, there!--It's all over now, little woman. I've come to

comfort you."

CHAPTER LX

THE TWO PRAYERS

I

The Gentleman was walking away into the sunset.

The Parson turned from the dormer, and his eyes were wet.

"And, now, my boy," he cried, "you know what a gentleman is."

The words loosed the fountains of laughter in the lad's heart.

"I thought, sir, that you said--"

"You thought wrong," snapped the Parson. "I said nothing of the sort."

He swung round on Blob and kicked him.

"What fur why?" whimpered Blob.

"Teach you!" cried the Parson. "Want some more, eh? Then behave

yourself. I'm sick o your nonsense."

He reached up to the rafter.

"Eat and sleep--that's the whole duty of man just at present. Blob,

take Piper his rations, and ask him to forgive an old soldier who's a

bit short in the temper in action--and do the same yourself, my boy.

Here, Kit."

They snatched a hasty meal.

Outside the dusk was falling.

The Parson brushed the crumbs off his cravat.

"And now will you take first watch, or shall I?"

"I will, sir. I don't feel like sleep."

"Very well. Wake me when the moon dips behind the Downs, or earlier if

there's a sign of the soldiers."

Kit took his post at the dormer. The other slipped off his coat.

"I'm not much of a Parson as you may have found out," he muttered,

"still I am an Englishman." And he plumped down on his knees

defiantly.

His was a very short and simple prayer; the prayer tens of thousands

of Englishmen were praying from their hearts at that time.

Kneeling in his shirt, Polly shining before him against the wall, he

repeated it most earnestly.

The whispered words, so simple and heart-felt, reached the ears of the

boy at the dormer.

"God bless our dear country; and God d--- the French."

The waters of laughter came roaring up the boy's throat, and surged

over, irresistible.

The Parson rose from his knees, and scowled at the lad's shaking

shoulders.

"I suppose they're too proud to pray in _his_ Service," he

sneered. "Pack o pirates!" He took off his coat and folded it with

thumps. "Yet I know one sailor who's not above paying his respects to

his Maker--and that's Lord Nelson, of whom you may have heard. Seen

him myself in the trenches at Calvi. I remember a great buck of a

Dragoon Guardsman asking him,

"'Why d'you pray, little man?' 'Why,' says Nelson, simple as a child,

'because mother taught me.' Yes, sir," fiercely, "and that's why I

pray--and jolly good reason too."

"Did she teach you that prayer?" asked Kit demurely.

"Bah! blurry young tarry-breeks!" muttered the other; and curling on

the floor, his rolled jacket beneath his head, the old campaigner was

off to sleep, Polly fair and faithful beside him.

II

The boy had the house to himself, and the world too. At last he could

retire once more upon the Love within him.

He could pray--without words.

The sea was a plain shining beneath the moon. Against the light, inky

sycamores ruffled, stars entangled in their leaves. On the shingle-

bank the bear-skinn'd sentinel showed black against white waters.

The plain beauty of the night stole upon his mind. All was jewelled

silence, save for the jar-r-r of the familiar goat-sucker from the

foot of the hills, and the wash of the sea.

How calm it was, how strong, how radiant!

He had been far away. Now he was drawing near again. It was his once

more. He possessed it all, all, all, and loved it as his own.

All day he had been the prisoner of his own distraught senses. And how

comfortable it was, after the darkness of that life which is death, to

resume the large loveliness of Life Unending.

Space and Time had no more meaning for him. He was again eternal and

infinite. All this beauty of earth and sky and moon-wan water, it was

not outside him, it was himself. He reached out a hand to pluck a

handful of stars, and could not--because they were too close. You

cannot pluck the jewels of your own heart.

Yet however deep he plunged into Eternity, the ache of Time was still

present to his mind, remote indeed, on the farthest shores of memory,

but always there, an ache that would not still. He felt the pain of

it, and still more the pettiness. To him, sitting at the heart of

things, drinking in the great night, they seemed strangely mean and

tawdry now, the excitements of the past day.

_Let not your heart be troubled_, came the voice of the Poet of

Truth down the ages.

Was it worthy of a Son of God so to vex himself with the trivialities

of this world?

What was war? what victory? what defeat?

True he must do his best for conscience' sake, but God would swing the

stars across the heaven whether Napoleon landed or not. He would still

march on His great way, though Nelson were lost.

Smiling to himself, the lad was wondering whether to the Maker of

those stars, this earth, that sea, the issue of this business might be

more than the issue of a squabble between two sparrows would be to

him.

III

He crossed to the northward window.

The Downs surged before him like a wave, dull against the brilliant

darkness. Overhead the slow stars trailed by, dipping, one after one,

behind the dark curtain of hills. The moon climbed above the

sycamores. Out on the plain something sparkled frostily. It was the

bayonet of a sentinel, lonely-pacing in the moonlight.

The sight brought the lad back to earth.

How would it all end? Were these few bearskinn'd trespassers only the

spray of seas to follow?

In a little while would England be flooded with them? Aghast, he

peered seaward: and seemed to behold a black tide of men sweeping

across the moon-drift. They deluged England. The fringe of them lapped

about his own northern home. A man in a tree was shooting at Gwen

running for her life, her hair behind her, screaming, "Kit!"

Something fell on the floor with a sharp tap, and stopped the shriek

on the verge of his lips.

What was it?

Another tap. Something was bobbing briskly across the floor. He picked

it up. It was a pebble, and must have come through the window.

Cocking his pistol, he rose.

"Down't shoot," said a low voice.

CHAPTER LXI

KNAPP'S RETURN

Beneath the window stood the little rifleman, white in the shadow of

the house, and grinning up at him.

"How did you get through?"

"Slip through em, sir--h'easy as a h'eel."

"Don't talk so loud," whispered the boy. "Just hop on to the sill of

the lower window. I'll see if I can haul you in."

"No, sir. I won't come in. I may be more usefuller outside. Keep em on

the Key Whiff as the sayin is."

"Then keep still! don't jig! hug in here in the shadow of the house!

I'll call Mr. Joy."

The Parson was at the window in a minute and listening to the man's

story.

According to his own account Knapp had done the twelve miles to Lewes

under the hour.

"Went slap away, as your orders was, sir, no foolin nor nothin, just

slap bang through em--you ask Mr. Caryll."

"Never mind about your feats," said the Parson shortly. "Did you see

the Commandant?"

"O yes, sir. Ran straight away through the camp to his tent, where the

flag were flyin, never bothered about no sentries nor nothin. Just as

I trot up, a little bit of a butterfly lady like bob out o the tent,

and when she see me--'Beau, boy!' she squeals. 'Beau, boy! ere's a

niked man! _Do_ come and see!' And she jig up and down and tiddle

her fingers at me, please as Punch.... Out come ole Whiskers, sword

and all. 'You something something!' says he, and knocks her back into

the tent. Then he run at me, roarin."

The little man was sniggering.

"I see by his eyes he meant it all, so--

"'Here, sir,' says I, 'somethin for yourself!' and chucks the note in

his mug."

The Parson was breathing deep.

"And what then?"

"Why, sir, I'd nothin on me ony the dooks me God give me. So I up and

I skip it."

The Parson leaned out, and smote at the man's shaven skull with the

butt-end of his pistol.

"Ain't I done right, sir?" squeaked the little man, dodging back.

"You've sold us!" cursed the Parson, and he was white even in the

moon.

"Hush, sir! hush!" cried Kit. "For goodness' sake, hush! They'll hear

you."

"Hullo! hullo! what's all this?" came a voice from across the sward.

"Excuse me, sir!" whispered Knapp, unabashed. "I'd best be steppin it.

Here are your papers, sir." He flung a packet through the window and

flashed away.

The Gentleman sat on the wall in the moonlight.

"So your chap's back," he called in his friendly voice.

"Yes, sir," replied the Parson harshly, "and the soldiers on his heels

two thousand strong, with a couple of Horse Batteries, and a company

of Sappers to rig up a gallows for conceited young coxcombs who pose

on walls in the moonlight."

"Very glad to see any friends of yours any time," replied the

Gentleman. "But unless they come soon I'm afraid we shall miss. I'm

off at dawn. But I'll see you again before going. Good-night."

He sauntered away.

The Parson turned, grinding his teeth.

Then he saw the boy's face, and laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Turn in, boy, and try to get a snooze. What tomorrow brings Heaven

knows, but we do know we shall want all our strength to meet it."

CHAPTER LXII

THE PARSON MUSES

The Parson opened his packet.

It contained a batch of newspapers dropped for him daily at Lewes by

the coach, and not called for since last Saturday.

Ah, here we are!

_The Times, Monday, August l9_--that was the day before

yesterday.

_Lord Nelson is arrived at Portsmouth._

Then the Gentleman was right!

He was here, the man his country had believed barring the passage of

the Combined Squadron Vigo way.

Why had the watch-dog left his post?

_We may infer from the circumstance of his Lordship's coming home,

that information had reached him of the Combined Squadron having got

into Ferrol._

He dared say they had. Where was the man should have stopped them?

_The Times, August 20._

_Lord Nelson arrived at his seat at Merton in Surrey

yesterday...._

O, the Gentleman! the Gentleman! It was all true then!...

_and will most probably attend at the Admiralty this day_.

Probably attend!

And this was Nelson! his Nelson!

_Victory, Spithead, August 18, 1805.

The Victory, with the fleet under my command, left Gibraltar twenty-

seven days ago....

Nelson and Bronté_.

That's right. Do the thing thoroughly if you're going to do it at all.

Come home yourself, and bring your fleet with you. It might get in the

way of the Combined Squadron if it stopped off Cadiz. Pity to be rude,

you know!

_As soon as Lord Nelson's flag was descried at Spithead, the

ramparts, and every place which could command a view of the entrance

of the harbour, were crowded with spectators. As he approached the

shore, he was saluted with loud and reiterated huzzas, as enthusiastic

and sincere as if he had returned crowned with a third great naval

victory_.

That third great victory, where was it now?

Poor little chap! poor little Nelson!

And what was this? The _Moniteur_, _Paris_, _August

12_. Boo-woo-woo.... Bob Calder's battle. [Footnote: Sir Robert

Calder had fought an indecisive action with Villeneuve in July.] Bob

Calder ought to be shot. Had em and then wouldn't hammer em. Call

emselves sailors!

_Vice-Admiral Calder stood off with thirteen ships, and left the

Combined Squadron masters of the sea_.

Masters of the Sea!

O good God! good God!

And what was Nelson doing?

_The sudden arrival of Lord Nelson in the Metropolis, after so long

an absence, and such arduous service, is a circumstance peculiarly

interesting to the inhabitants, who were yesterday waiting in

thousands about the Admiralty to give him a truly British reception.

Many, of course, were disappointed in their object, and can only wait

for another opportunity; but that, we have reason to believe, will

occur this evening, as it is reported in the Naval circles, that his

Lordship intends to pay a visit to Vauxhall Gardens, in honour of the

birthday of the Duke of Clarence. The report is, in many points of

view, entitled to consideration, for there is no other Gala in the

season which affords such an infinite degree of nautical

attraction._

Gala with a big G!

_No other Gala in the season which affords such an infinite degree

of nautical attraction._

Poor England! poor Nelson!

IV

THE GENTLEMAN'S LAST CARD

CHAPTER LXIII

NELSON'S TOPSAILS

Kit awoke with a start.

The dormer made a patch of diamond light in the dead of the wall, and

the chill of dawn sharpened the air.

Blob was bending over him.

"Nelson's a-comin," he announced, much as he might have said breakfast

was in.

Kit looked up into the round pink face, fresh as a daisy, and dewy-

eyed above him.

"No!" he cried, and started to his elbow.

"He is though, lad," said the Parson at the window, very quiet.

Kit was beside him in a minute.

The mattress was down, and the Parson, leaning out into the blue, both

hands on the sill, munched his thoughts.

"There's his tops'ls," said he, nodding east to where far across the

waters a glimmer as of an iceberg hung in the dawn. "Take the glass

and have a peep at her."

Mists still swathed the waters. Through them the sun peered ghostly,

twinkling on the intripping tide beyond the shingle-bank.

And--there again! far away, poised between sky and sea, that glimmer

of pearls.

It was some tall ship standing across the bay, the sun making glory on

her royals.

"Make her out?"

"Yes, sir. She's a frigate right enough--can't be anything else with

that height of canvas."

For in those dark days there was little business on the narrow seas

other than the business of war. For weeks together the Channel waters

were virgin of merchant-men. Trading bottoms dared not venture.

Majestic three-deckers and tall frigates paced the seas alone. Anon a

privateer swooped. Then a black smuggler scuttled from shore to shore

between twilights. Rarely a vast convoy, herded like sheep, drove by,

the dogs of war barking at the laggards. For the rest naked waters,

ship-forsaken.

"It's the _Medusa_" said the Parson deliberately. "How soon'll

she be off here, think you, sailor-boy?"

"I hardly know, sir. With this breeze I should think she might be

abreast of us in two hours, and round the Head in four."

"And into the trap in five," mused the Parson.

"And Nelson bandaged, his back to the wall, facing a French firing

party--all at about six o'clock of a sweet summer evening, August

22nd, the year of Our Lord, 1805."

He began to whistle meditatively.

The fine head, a-ripple with curls, was outlined against the sky. The

face was keener than a few days back; the jolly laughing look was

there no more. The blue eyes were touched to steel; and nose and jowl

thrust forth with ominous grimness. It was the face of the determined

fighter, hard-set and terrible.

He leaned out into the morning, whistling quietly, as fair a mark as

any sharp-shooter on the knoll might wish, so Kit suddenly recalled,

and plucked at him.

The other's arm was iron against him. The Parson made no move, seeming

neither to feel, nor understand. A man of marble, he dwelt in the

mind; brooding on that glimmer of pearls in the east.

Yet after a minute, as though the message had taken just that time to

reach his remote brain, he answered the boy's thought.

"That's all right, Kit," he said, deliberate as in a dream. "The

Gentleman has changed his dispositions. He's withdrawn from the knoll.

Where the Gang are I don't know, but he has got the main of his

Grenadiers on the landside still."

Kit peeped out of the Downs-ward window.

The old picquet on the plain, the old cordon of pacing Grenadiers, the

old camp-fire with the drifting smoke and arms piled beside it; and

further North, from beneath a thorn, the flash of a bayonet told of an

outlying sentry posted there to watch for the relieving force no

doubt.

Sick at heart, the lad turned and looked out over the Parson's

shoulder.

On his right front humped the knoll, an islet set in a sea of turf,

now only tenanted by dark sycamores, ruffling it in the dawn-wind.

Beneath him the greensward ran away to the shingle-bank. Beyond the

crest of it, the mast of the lugger pricked up black against the

sparkling water.

There was neither stir nor sound, save for the ripple of the tide, and

overhead the eternal chirp of the sparrows, careless that history was

being made about them.

All was still, all deserted.

As he looked, the lad's mind flamed to a thought.

"I say!" he whispered, clutching the Parson's arm. "What about the

lugger?"

"Well! what about the lugger?"

"Rush her now! Here's our chance!"

The Parson turned calm eyes upon the other's splendid ones.

"Aye, lad, aye," he said, with the crushing calm a man wields so

mightily. "But give the Gentleman his due, he's not quite such a fool

as you'd make him out. He knows our aim as well as he knows his own.

We've got to get to Nelson. There's only one way left--the lugger. If

he's left that way open it's as plain as the nose on your face it's

because he wants us to take it."

Ugh, these men! the boy worshipped the man's courage and scorned his

caution. He throbbed for the relief of action. Only let him be doing!

anything, anything in the world was better than standing here to watch

Nelson sweep doom-wards.

"And suppose," he flashed, "suppose the Gentleman makes away in his

lugger now! what shall we do? Twiddle our thumbs and whistle, till the

soldiers come, I suppose! And then," with the crude irony of fifteen,

"then perhaps, if we're very brave, and the Gentleman has got

_well_ away to sea, we'll take a little stroll with a strong

escort to the top of Beachy Head to see Nelson strung up to his own

yard-arm!"

The boy's fiery insults left the other cold.

"You're young, my boy, offensively young," he said. "A bad fault, but

one you may hope to grow out of. One thing I'm sure of. You do your

friend a great injustice. He won't leave that despatch-bag in our

hands till he's forced to at the point of the steel."

"But what can we _do_?" blazed the boy--"do, do, do! There's

Nelson!" with flashing forefinger. "Here are we. He won't come to us.

We _must_ get to him. There's only one way--the lugger. It may be

a poor chance, still if it's the only one! O, sir, sir! surely it's

better to die attempting something, than stand and _rot_ to death

here!"

The words poured forth in a white-hot torrent, shaking him.

Anybody in the world but the practical Englishman would have been

moved.

He only grunted.

"I wish I knew what was going on behind that shingle-bank," he

grumbled, half to himself.

The boy's soul quenched, only to flame forth again.

"I'll be your eyes, sir!"

The Parson shook a dubious head.

"Oh let me! O do! sir! sir!"

He was hopping, trembling at the other's side.

The Parson with his slow and chewing mind was digesting the situation.

Beneath his calm, he was mad to know what was going on behind the

shingle-bank. If he went himself, who would be left in garrison?--the

old story.

Yet if he sent Kit?

Twice already he had let the boy go forth alone, and each time had

barely plucked him from the jaws of death. Could he send him forth a

third time to face what God should send?

Could he?

He locked his jaws.

Duty, duty, duty! a hard mistress for those who serve her, but the

only one for an Englishman.

His mind made up, true man that he was, he wasted no time in excusing

himself to himself or to others.

Somewhat grey about the jaws, he swung about.

"Very well," shortly. "Just a peep--no more, mind!"

CHAPTER LXIV

RUMBLINGS OF THUNDER

The boy slid down the ladder into the gloom of the kitchen.

There was no familiar silver head at its wonted place of watch by the

loop-hole.

"Piper!"

"Sir!"

The old foretop-man was sitting beside the trapdoor, peering down into

the blackness of the cellar, and listening intently.

"That you, Master Kit? Would you step this way, sir? There keeps on a

kind of a rumbling like in the drain--a'most as though the gentlemen

be running a cargo. I ca'ant justly make it out."

The boy came to his side and listened. True, there was a muffled noise

of rolling in the drain, and dull banging against the door. Well, they

might bang till they were blue: they would make as much impression on

that door as the breeze on Beachy Head.

The old man looked up and saw the lad beside him in shirt-sleeves.

"Hullo, sir! what's forrad then?"

"I'm going to take a little trot over to the shingle-bank to have a

look round," said the boy, shivering. "I want you to stand by the door

to let me out and in."

The old man rolled up his sleeves, snatched his cutlass from the

corner, whetted it with the easy grace of a bird whetting its beak,

and spat on his hands.

"Then it's stand by to repel boarders! Rithe away, sir, when you are."

The Parson peered down.

"All's quiet," he whispered. "Ready, Kit?"

"Yes, sir."

The boy stood up pale in the gloom.

"Then ease those bolts away. Gently, Piper!"

The old man opened quietly.

A sweet wind stole in, and with it a flood of light.

Kit peeped out.

How naked it looked, how terrible!

"One moment."

He bent, untied his shoe-lace, and tied it up again.

Upstairs it had seemed such an easy thing to dare this deed, so full

of the poetry and romance of war. Down here, face to face with the

bare fact, it was a different matter. A plank, as it were, had been

thrust out from solid earth over Eternity; it was his to walk that

plank; and he didn't like the job.

Piper held the door, waiting respectfully. The old man's sleeves were

rolled to the arm-pit. On one hairy fore-arm a dancing-girl was

tattooed, record of the days, now forty years since, before, in his

own simple phrase, he had larned Christ.

He knew no fear himself: for he knew that he was impregnable. But his

heart went out to this slip of a lad, who had to face Eternity alone,

and found it terrible.

The twilight of love, always in all faces the same, which comes when

at a call the Christ rises from the deeps of the heart, darkened his

eyes.

He gave a shy little cough.

"There's one bower-anchor'll weather any storm, by your leave, sir,"

he said, the sailor and the Christian quaintly commingled.

The boy felt the other's strength flow into his.

"I know," he panted, and plunged.

CHAPTER LXV

THE DOINGS IN THE CREEK

I

As he ran he seemed to himself to be a body of lead borne on watery

dream-legs.

In the sally of yesterday at least he had Knapp with him. Now he was

alone. And to dare alone is to be revealed to yourself, naked as you

are.

A visible danger would have strengthened him. It was the horror of he-

knew-not-what coming from he-knew-not-where that made his heart

hammer.

The boy's body screamed to go back. His will thrust it forward. The

shock and struggle of the two charged him as with electricity. A

touch, he felt, and he might go off in a flash of lightning.

As he held on, and nothing happened, mind began to ride body more

masterfully. The flesh, beaten, gave and gave; till in despair,

abandoning its backward pull, it threw forward into the work.

What was death? was it what the parsons seemed to think--a foreign

land, millions of miles away, with an old man in a temper waiting

somewhere in the middle to be nasty to him?

Heaven and earth, this world and the next! Were there indeed two? a

great gulf between them. Or were both one and everlasting? Was he,

believing himself in Time, dwelling in Eternity now? Was he immortal

now?

His heart answered, _Now or never_.

What then to fear?

The thought whirled him forward.

The grass felt goodly beneath his feet. The sun, still pale in mist,

blessed him. A fresh wind flowed about him, flustering hair and shirt.

His heart eased.

After all his rear was fairly safe, and his flank unthreatened. As to

his front--well, he had his eyes and his dirk.

Gripping himself together, every hair alert, he ran.

He was nearly across the sward now. Tall grass-blades pricked sparsely

through the sand. The shingle-bank, roan against the sparkle of the

sea, surged before him, and behind it--what?

He was living in his eyes.

The knoll lay now to his right rear. Behind it, across the creek, rose

the Wish; and on the crest a Grenadier gazing seawards.

Opposite the little hill, standing on the bank somewhere just above

the entrance to the sluice, stood the Gentleman.

II

Kit dropped to his hands and knees.

The other had not seen him: for he was standing, back turned, and a

short black-snouted pistol in the hand behind him; directing

operations in the creek.

What did it all mean? what was that banging and business in the creek?

It was to find this out that he had come.

A sound close at hand drew his mind to his ears.

The crest of the shingle-bank was some twenty yards away. From the

reverse slope came the crunch and scream of disturbed pebbles.

Somebody was scrambling up the bank towards him, the pebbles pouring

noisily away beneath his feet.

What to do?--turn and bolt? He could be back across the grass before

the slow-foot Frenchman had sworn himself to the crest. Lie there out

in the open, to be made prisoner, or potted at thirty yards?

No, no, no! To retreat was shame: to stay death. But one course

remained--the riskiest, which, as he had heard the Parson say, in a

tight place is often the safest. That course was forward. Take the man

unawares as he crested the rise; dirk him; one swift glimpse at the

lugger and the doings in the creek; and then pelting home before the

enemy had realised the situation and begun to shout.

"_François! François!_" came an irritable voice.

The climber stopped.

"_Qu'as-tu donc, mon Caporal?_"

"_Nom d'un chien!_" snapped the other. "_Faut il me faire

matelot? Aidez moi un peu avec ces satanées cordes!_"

The climber slithered down on his heels, a cataract of shingle

streaming behind him.

Swift to seize his chance, Kit rushed the crest, the crash of the

Frenchman's retreat drowning his approach.

There, flat on his face, he peeped.

Beneath him, on the run of the shingle, lay the lugger. Her jib was

flapping; the mainsail set for the hoisting; every stick and stay in

place. Half a dozen burly Grenadiers, black-muzzled with a week's

beard, were busy about her, stowing their kits, laughing and

chattering.

A sprightly little Corporal, balancing on the stern, was spitting

forth orders.

The foreign language, there on his native shore, made a discord in the

boy's heart.

"_Quand partirons-nous?_" asked François, wading down the

shingle, pack on back.

"_Aussitôt que tout sera prêt la-bas,_" answered the corporal,

casting a glance over his shoulder. "_Bah! ces gueux d'Anglais!

Monsieur le Général en a par dessus les yeux._"

Kit followed the man's eyes.

III

A track of feet led from the lugger to the creek across the wet sand.

Along it a tail of smugglers were trundling barrels gingerly. At the

entrance to the sluice others were hoisting and heaving. Above them

stood that slight figure against the sky-line, the ominous pistol

lurking behind him.

And it was clear the ruffians were smouldering to mutiny. Their heads

were over their shoulders as they worked, and their eyes on the

lugger. The soldiers were coming! they felt the halter tightening

round their necks; and they were mad to be away.

Only one man in the world could have held them there at all, Kit felt,

and he had all his work cut out. That slight figure against the sky-

line, so calm, so terrible, seemed compact of power.

Kit had seen his friend in many moods; now he saw him in another. And

the boy thought he loved him in this last rôle best, because in it he

feared him most. This was not the man of poetry, charming as April,

gay-hearted as a boy; this was the remorseless leader, iron for his

cause, brutal, if you will, as a man who deals with brutes must be.

There was a sultry silence--the silence and horror before the storm

breaks. Kit felt it and was appalled. He could almost hear the flames

of mutiny roaring in those dull and darkened hearts.

For one moment the boy forgot himself and his cause. He was a play-

goer, watching a drama. This man was the hero, valiant, lonely, a

miracle of strength. The boy felt for him a passionate sympathy. Could

he hold them?--Would they break?

Even as he watched, a man shot out of the ruck and away, scampering

furiously with the shrugged shoulders and ducked head of one expecting

a blow.

It came sure as fate, and as deliberate.

Out shot the Gentleman's pistol hand.

A crack, a stab of flame, and the man was flopping on the sand like a

landed fish.

As the Gentleman fired, another from below stormed up the bank at him.

A flash of lightning darted at him, and struck him in the chest. The

fellow collapsed in a heap.

The boy had half risen to his elbow.

"Well done!" he cried with blazing enthusiasm. Then he remembered

where he was, and dropped.

No man had heard. The Grenadiers like himself were busy watching the

doings in the creek. A murmur of applause rose from among them.

"_Bravo, Monsieur le Général! Hein! Canaille_!"

In the creek all was quiet again now. The flame of mutiny was

quenched; the Gang had resumed their work; and the Gentleman was

wiping his blade upon his sleeve.

CHAPTER LXVI

BUGLES

I

In the loft the Parson was patting the shoulder of the lad now panting

beside him.

"Another notch to the Navy," he said.... "What news, boy?"

Kit told of the lugger, ready to sail; of the business of the barrels

in the creek; of the rumbling in the drain.

The Parson listened with nodding head.

"I feel like a mouse that knows it's going to have a cat jump on its

back, but don't know quite when or just how," he muttered.

"Meantime there's Nelson, sir!" cried the boy, great-eyed and anxious.

"I know, my boy, I know. But while there's the lugger, there's hope."

He leaned out of the window. A sentry was now on the shingle-bank; and

he could see the tall-plumed bearskins of the Grenadiers busy about

the lugger.

The boy took up the telescope.

The mists were lifting, and the sun shone white upon the water. He

could see the frigate, faint indeed and far, stately-pacing towards

her doom; he could see the mast of the lugger, Grenadier-guarded, and

those leagues of shining waste between the two.

Where was help?

An awful darkness drowned his heart.

He shut the telescope with a snap.

"We're beat," he sobbed.

The other gripped his arm.

"If we're beat, England's beat. If England's beat, the Devil's won,

and the world's lost--which is absurd."

The man's stern enthusiasm fired the boy afresh.

"If you'll tell me what to do I'll do it," he said a little

tremulously. "But I don't see the way."

"There is a way, Kit. There must be. And we shall find it."

The man was indomitable. There seemed no ghost of a chance; still no

shadow of despair clouded that clear spirit. As the sea of

difficulties rose about him, his soul rose to meet it on triumphant

wings.

Yet the problem before him seemed insoluble.

Nelson there: they here: one boat between, and that boat guarded by

the pick of the Army of England.

He turned those good blue eyes of his upon the boy with a drolling

baffled look.

"How's it to be done?--what says the Commodore?"

The light had fled from the boy's face. Pale and still, he looked like

a young saint about to be martyred.

"There's only one way I can think of, sir."

"What's that?"

The lad lifted the eyes of a woman.

"Pray."

A darkness drove across the Parson's face.

"You pray," he growled. "I'll sharpen my sword."

Turning to the corner he bowed to Polly shining among the cobwebs.

"A sweet morning, my lady," he cried. "And promise of a fair day's

work."

The boy turned his face to the wall.

II

"Mr. Joy, sir!"

"Well, Piper."

"There's a man on a horse."

"Where?"

"Rithe away oop a-top o th' hill over Willingdon--on the old drove-

road from Lewes."

The Parson sprang to his feet.

"Sharp work!" he said with a grin at Kit's back.

"Well done you, boy!"

Kit leapt to the window.

"Theer!" said Blob, pointing.

Far away on the rim of the world stood a tiny horseman.

What was he, that little speck of blackness on the horse without

legs?--ploughboy or dragoon?--alone or the leader of a troop?

"Wave!" cried the Parson at his elbow.

Sobbing and frantic, the lad fluttered his handkerchief.

As though in answer a bugle-call rang echoing down to them.

"The soldiers!" gasped Kit, his knees fainting beneath him. "O, thank

God!"

Close at hand another bugle rang out merrily.

"Nipper Knapp!" cried Piper. "Butter my wig, if it ain't!"

A shoal of silver minnows flashed and twinkled above the crest.

"Bayonets, by God!" roared the Parson. "Here they come, the little

darlings!" as a black trickle of figures poured over the crest.

Others too had seen and heard.

A shot rang out in the stillness: the Grenadier under the thorn came

back on his picquet at the double. The shot was answered ironically

from the hill-side by the English Last Post. Here in the dawn France

and England challenged each other tauntingly.

It was splendid. Kit's blood danced to it. He thought of old-time

tournays, the champion riding into the ring at the last moment. He was

half sob, half song. The wine of glory flushed his veins as at the

moment when he stormed with the crew of the _Tremendous_ at the

heels of Lushy. His eyes ran; his voice broke. Now it was a shrill

treble, now a hoarse bass.

The Parson was chewing his lip.

"Horse or foot, I wonder?"

"Foot," cried Kit, stamping up and down.

"Damnation!" grumbled the Parson. "Are they doubling?"

"Not they!" cried Kit, mad to insolence--"doing the goose-step by

numbers so far as I can see. Good old leather-stocks!"

Knapp might have heard him: for the bugle close at hand blew the

charge furiously.

"Now they've broken into a double. Come on, you chaps! come on!"

"Well done, Knapp!" muttered the Parson, swallowing his excitement.

"Good little boy! Good little b-o-y! If he lives through this, he

shall have a pint o beer to his breakfast to-morrow, by God he shall.

Piper! how long'll they take getting here?"

"Why, sir, a little better'n half an hour, I reckon. Drop down by

Motcombe, through Upperton, and down along Water Lane."

The Parson turned to Kit.

"How long will it be before the tide will float the lugger, think

you?"

"Twenty minutes, sir."

The Parson grunted.

"Pot begins to boil," he said, and took off his coat.

"O, if they're too late!" cried Kit in swift agony, and turned to

glance at the far frigate.

"God's never too late, my boy," answered the Parson, folding his coat

carefully.

III

Rolling up his sleeves, he was looking through the seaward window.

The Gang were streaming across the greensward, and round the cottage,

pointing, shouting.

Behind them came the Gentleman. He was swinging his sword, and

chopping at the daisies. Whoever else was disturbed, it was not he.

Last the Grenadiers who formed the lugger-guard came toppling over the

shingle-bank.

The Gentleman stayed them with imperious hand.

The Parson saw it and grinned. The chap, for all his high-faluting

ways, was a soldier through and through. He missed no point, not the

smallest. The Parson respected him.

The other, crossing the sward, raised his head and saw the man at the

window. The eyes of the two met. Each smiled. Each knew the other's

heart.

"No, no," cried the Gentleman with a little wave. "I give nothing

away. I can't afford to. I know my opponent."

The Parson bowed, tightening his belt. And after all it was a pretty

compliment from the first light cavalry-man in Europe.

The Gentleman passed round the cottage and out of sight.

"What shall you do?" asked Kit hoarsely at the Parson's elbow.

"Why, the only thing there is to be done--and that's nothing."

He sat down on a broken box, took out a handkerchief and began to

furbish his blade with the delicate tenderness of a woman bathing a

child.

Kit, fretted almost to tears, watched him with angry admiration. The

crisis had come, and this curly grey-head sat, calm as a village

Solomon in his door of summer evenings, and talked baby to his sword.

"I don't see _that_ helps much," sneered the boy--"cleaning the

plate!"

"Nor does fussing for that matter," retorted the other tranquilly. "In

war, as in the world, you must do as you're done by. That mayn't be

parson's truth; but it is soldier's. And I'm a soldier for the time

being. The cards lie with the Gentleman. We shall have to follow suit

--or trump. If he's got a card up his sleeve he must play it--now or

never."

The boy turned to the window.

The Gentleman was standing upon the broken wall, hand over his eyes,

taking in the situation.

He flung a finger here, an order there.

The Grenadiers threw forward across the plain in skirmishing order.

"Looks like business," muttered the Parson, tucking in his shirt.

"What's it going to be?"

He had not long to wait.

The Gentleman vaulted the wall, and came swiftly across the grass

towards them.

CHAPTER LXVII

THE ACE OF TRUMPS

I

He came rapidly across the lawn, the sun upon him.

Kit thought him the fairest figure of a man he had ever seen.

The Parson was comely with the comeliness of an apple, this man was

beautiful with the beauty of sun and sword in one.

But the boy noticed that there was more of the sword and less of the

sun than of old about him.

Was the strain telling on him too?

"Forgive me for disturbing you so early," called the gay voice. "The

Reverend Father was at his devotions doubtless!"

"No, sir," retorted the Parson. "The Reverend Father was watching the

Horse, Foot, and Artillery, pelting down the hill on top o you."

"I've been watching em too," replied the other. "And sorry I am I

shan't be here to entertain em--I've a soft place for the soldiers

myself. But I'm just off for a day on the water. A pretty morning!"

"Yes; as pretty a morning to hang a play-actor on as ever I saw."

The other waved a hand.

"Ah, but I'm not going to hang you, dear Padre. I have other views for

you."

He was fascinating, but somehow he was fearful too. He was the python:

they were the rabbits. He had power: and that power was none the less

terrible because it was mysterious.

The Parson leaned out, bold and bluffing.

"I take you. The game's up. And you've come to surrender, eh?"

The other shook his head.

"No. I just stepped across to say good-bye, and see if I couldn't

perhaps persuade you to come with me."

"No, sir, thank you all the same. I'm a land-animal myself. Besides

I'm too cosy here."

The other stood silent a full minute, nodding a slow head.

"Alas, poor ghost!" he said at length half to himself, and made as

though to turn.

The Parson was staggered.

Had he no card then? was he merely bluffing?

"What's it mean?" he whispered fiercely to Kit.

"It means he's going--and Nelson's last chance with him!" panted the

boy. "O, _make_ him stay!"

The Parson leaned out again.

"I hope you'll come back to see your friends hung, my lord!" he

bawled.

The Gentleman turned again.

"Friends?"

"Well, aren't they your friends?--Lord Alfiriston, Sir Harry Dene, and

the rest. I gathered they were from the despatch-bag you're so good as

to leave in my hands."

"I'm leaving no despatch-bag in your hands."

The Parson jumped round.

What did the fellow mean? Had he somehow?...

No, there it was on the staple, the tarpaulin bag stamped with the

Imperial Eagle.

He took it down.

"This is the boy I meant. Won't you leave this with us?"

The Gentleman shook his head.

"What you going to do with it?" mockingly.

"What I'm going to do with you."

Man and boy, hugging close in the window, each felt the other tauten.

"What's that?"

The other rolled his eyes heavenward.

The Parson was breathing through his nose.

"What ye mean?"

A tiny smile broke about the Gentleman's lips. He raised a finger, and

drew nearer on his toes, stealthy as a child about to reveal a secret

to its mother; and there was a horror about him.

"_Hush, and I'll whisper you!_"

The horror grew upon the man. The Parson shivered.

The very air was listening.

"_Powder-mine._"

"_A what?_"

"_A powder-mine._"

The laughter bubbled up in his eyes, and rippled about his face. He

was a child, a cruel child, who springs a carefully-prepared surprise

on a comrade, and dwells wantonly on the effect.

"Not vairy nice, is it?" he bantered. "I _do_ feel for you."

He stood beneath the window, hands clasped before him, chin down, the

little maiden, demure yet malicious: the little maiden and yet--the

Devil.

"So sorray. But I do not want those despatches to fall into the hands

of bad men. You forgive?" winningly.

The Parson drew a great breath. It was so sudden, so aweful, so utter.

It was Piper who broke the silence from below.

"We're settin on a powder-mine, sir. Is that it?"

"That's it."

"Ah, well," came the philosophic voice. "Short and sweet--bless God.

Better'n lingerin on it out."

Kit panted,

"Nelson!" and swooned.

II

When he came round the Gentleman was approaching slowly across the

grass.

He bantered no more. Maiden and Devil were dead. He was man, and grey

as dew.

"Captain Joy," he was saying quietly. "Let us face facts. Samson is

bound. Over there," pointing to Beachy Head, "are the liers in wait.

That frigate's the _Medusa_. Nelson's aboard of her. She can't

escape."

The words stung Kit to new life.

"She can't escape perhaps," he shouted. "But can't she fight?"

The other shook his head.

"Why?" persisted Kit, hot for the honour of his Service. "Why can't

she fight?"

"She can't fight," said the Gentleman slowly, "because her powder's

wet."

"What!" bellowed the Parson--"more traitors!"

"The Gunner is mine," replied the Gentleman briefly.

"Oh, the Navy! the Navy!" cried the Parson, rocking.

"But, I don't believe it!" screamed Kit. "Let him prove it! Let him

tell us how he's worked it."

The Gentleman walked slowly up and down before the window.

"We needn't enter into that," he said, cold as death.

The Parson launched a slow laughing sneer, terrible to hear.

"What! more gentlemanliness from our Gentleman!"

The words whipped the other's face white.

He stopped in his walk, and lifted slow eyes.

"It may be that I have loved my country better than my God," he said.

A smile flashed across his face--"_But what a country to be damned

for!_"

Slowly he came towards the cottage.

"To return to the point. Nelson is lost. No power on earth can save

him now."

"I do not look to any power on earth for help," replied the Parson

solemnly.

"Let us talk as men," answered the other as solemn. "You have nothing

to gain by holding out, and everything to lose. All that an honourable

soldier could do you have done. Is it not now the part of true courage

to accept the inevitable? For the last time, will you surrender?"

The great veins started on the Parson's forehead.

"Never!" he bawled. "Do your d'dest!"

The Gentleman turned and turned again.

"The blood of those boys be on your head, Mr. Joy!"

"Let the boys answer for themselves," retorted the Parson, short and

sullen.

The Gentleman paused.

"Little Chap," he called, "will you come?--France is a fair country.

You shall have Monsieur Moon-calf there for squire. Myself I will see

to it that you are happy."

"I would rather be dead in England than alive in France," the boy

answered passionately. "What about you, Blob?"

"Here Oi be and here Oi boide," replied Blob doggedly, and dulled the

romance of the statement by adding--"Oi aren't got ma money yet."

"Think twice, Little Chap!" called the Gentleman. "You are young. You

are happy. The day is before you. The night is not yet. It is early to

draw down the blinds."

The Parson had turned his back to the window.

"Ask the ass for time," he whispered. "We must have time."

The boy leaned out.

"May I have ten minutes to think it over, sir?"

"Two, my boy."

"Oh, sir!" pitiful, appealing.

The Gentleman glanced across his shoulder, and turned again.

"Ah, well! five be it."

He took out his watch, and sat on the wall with dangling legs.

CHAPTER LXVIII

THE BLESSING

I

"I must have a word with Piper."

The Parson was down the ladder in a flash.

The old foretop-man, humming his hymn in the eternal twilight, turned.

"Well, sir?"

"You've heard, Piper?"

"I've hard, sir. And if so be a common seaman might make so bold,

there's but one thing for it, and that's the cold steel."

He laid his Bible aside and took up his cutlass.

"It's a forlorn hope, Piper."

"It's the only one, sir."

The Parson swung round.

"And there's another thing," he cried in terrible agony. "What about

you, Piper? We shall take it in the open; but _you_, you'll have

to wait for it. I _can't_ leave you to fall alive into the hands

of those--those--O my God! my God!" stamping up and down.

There was quiet thrill in the voice that answered,

"They ca'an't touch me, sir. I'm safe in Jesus." The old man seemed to

shine in the darkness.

"It's not death I fear for you!" cried the Parson. "No Christian fears

that for his friend. It's--it's the old game--the Gap Gang."

"Ah, they won't have no time for no larks," interposed the other with

a comfortable chuckle. "They can do their muckiest. It won't last

long. The soldiers'll stop that."

The words, and the way of saying them, quickened the Parson to

tremendous life.

"You're right, old friend," he cried, his voice naming in the gloom.

"Death to face, but nothing to fear."

"Death to face," echoed the old man, "and Christ to follow."

II

"I'm distressed to disturb you," came a cold voice from without. "But

time's nearly up."

"You said five minutes, sir!" called Kit.

"You've had three, my boy. You've got two."

"And we'll make good use of em," gasped the Parson, and raced up the

ladder.

Snatching the despatch-bag from the staple, he tumbled the contents on

the floor, and set the whole ablaze. The papers curled and crackled;

and their dreadful secret escaped joyfully in merry little flames.

"May God deal so with all traitors in his own good time!" prayed the

Parson.

He trod out the flames, and turned to the boys.

"I'm goin for em."

"So'm I, sir--and Blob."

"So be it!" said the Parson, short and fierce. "Out knives. Off coats.

Tighten belly-bands."

He was on his knees, stuffing his coat into the empty despatch-bag,

working in a white fury.

"Now ask no questions, but listen, and obey! I'm going to undo the

back door _noisily_. You'll undo the front door _quietly_. I

shall sally, the despatch-bag slung across my shoulders--so--see?--

Give me a good start. Choose your moment. Then follow."

The words came swift as hail. The Parson was at his best--the

Englishman in action, back to the door, face to Eternity. The shock

and storm of circumstance made lightning in the dark of his mind. He

saw all before him clear as a landscape at night in the flashes of a

thunderstorm.

"Directly they begin to close on you, you'll get a panic--a screaming

panic. Bolt back for the cottage; slam the door; lock and bar; through

the house, out at the front, and make for the lugger! You may not be

seen--the cottage'll cover you: and I'll keep em occupied as long as I

can. If all goes as I hope, you'll find the lugger unguarded. The rest

I must leave to you and the Almighty. It's a poor chance, but the only

one."

"Gentlemen, gentlemen!" came the warning voice from without.

III

The Parson slid down into the darkness.

"Piper," he cried, hoarse and dry. "I believe--I believe these lads

will win through. It's God's battle. He _must_ help."

"He will, sir," replied the old man, firm as faith.

"I'm a clergyman. You're a good man. This is a desperate business.

Will you give us your blessing?"

He was down on his knees, in his white shirt, his sword a gleam of

silver on the slabs before him.

"Kit."

The boy, swift to grasp his meaning, knelt beside him, pulling Blob

after him.

An arm stole round him; his stole round Blob.

So they knelt in the twilight, hugging close in that aweful sense of

loneliness that comes to men when the Gates of Death are seen to swing

back to let them through.

Kit thought of his Confirmation six months ago.

Now the end was come--so soon.

Well, well, he had often died before. And how clearly it all came back

to him, this final stage in the little pilgrimage, these last few

steps, solemn, beautiful, and slow, up to the familiar threshold; then

the old door, the old smile, and--the old forgetfulness.

He had no regrets, and was strangely calm, strangely uplifted. He

could look back without shame, and forward without fear. Now he was

thankful that in these days of his ordeal he had been true to himself

and to his trust. He had done his best. There was little more to do.

That little should be done as became the son of his father.

IV

In the gloom they knelt before this unanointed Priest of Jehovah.

His office sat upon that white old man, native to him as his soul.

He spread his great-knuckled hands above them, a patriarch, a prophet,

an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God.

"God bless you, sir--and you, Master Kit--and you, Boy Hoad." He drew

his hand across his mouth.

"So be. Amen," he added solemnly.

"Amen," said they all.

The Parson rose.

He gripped the old man's hand.

Blob he patted on the back.

"Kit," he said, and, drawing the boy towards him, kissed him.

CHAPTER LXIX

THE PARSON'S SORTIE

I

"Time!" came the stern voice from without.

The Parson slammed back the last bolt with a clang, and whipped up his

sword.

"_Ready?_"

The man was in a white flame, roaring for battle.

"_Yes_."

Time had stopped: Eternity was there.

"_Then God help us all to die!_"

He flung back the door and plunged.

It was a venture of despair; but there was no despair in that heart of

oak.

Swift as a flood, and as silent, he made for the wall, the despatch-

bag flopping in the small of his back. And his silence added to the

terror of his coming.

The white-hearted crew huddling behind the wall felt it. Here and

there a scared head dodged up only to duck again.

One man alone left cover and went out to meet the solitary swordsman.

The Gentleman vaulted the wall, and came across the sward with steady

eyes, twisting his sword-knot about his wrist.

There was a rimy look about his face, and a snarl in the voice that

shouted to the crew behind him,

"Come! close in there! You've got to finish this job before you go.

The soldiers are on your heels, remember."

Close at hand a sudden drum rolled.

It smote the guilty hearts of the Gang like a summons to the Last

Judgment.

"_What's that?_"

They rose up like dead men and looked behind them. It was not much

they saw, but it was sufficient.

Close in their rear, on a rise of the ground, a man stood against the

sky, thundering fatally on a monster drum.

He wore a red coat; he was a soldier.

And as they gazed, he beat a furious rat-a-tan-tan and charged.

That was enough. The Gang broke.

II

The Gentleman flashed round to meet the new danger.

He saw a pair of twinkling legs, a huge drum, belly-borne, and two

drum-sticks, brandished vaingloriously, driving a rout of men before

them.

The humour of the thing seized him.

"Well done, Soldier!" he laughed, and was back over the wall in a

trice, attempting to stop the rout.

He might as well have attempted to stay the tide. A torrent of men

tumbled past him in howling tumult.

He stood like a lighthouse in the tide-way.

"What! one man lick the lot o you!" came the whipping voice. "O, good

God!" with a passion of scorn--"you sweeps! you swine!"

His blade flashed and fell.

"Pretty stroke!" shouted the Parson, flying the wall. "At em again,

sir!" He cut in fiercely on the flank. "Come on, Knapp!--That's the

style! Bellyful for once! Bellyful for the boy!"

"I'm there, sir!" cried Knapp, very brisk and bright.

He had flung aside his drum, and was tearing up, wielding his drum-

sticks like battle-axes.

"Into em!" bellowed the Parson. "Give em the glory o God! Give em the

Lord's own delight!"

He was hounding at the heels of the last smuggler, and the Gentleman

was hounding at his.

"Ow's that-a-tat-tat? ow's that?" cried Knapp, racing up from behind,

and came down with a flourish and a thump on the swordsman's head as

he thrust.

Down went the Gentleman in sprawling ruin.

"That's a little bit o better, ain't it?" chirped the Cockney, and

skipping over the fallen man, he was at the Parson's side, in the

thick and fury of it, bringing down his drum-sticks to the battle-cry

of,

"Ow's that-a-tat-tat? ow's that?"

III

The old man and the boys watched from the cottage. The door was ajar.

They huddled behind it, peering. Beside them lay the table, a musket

across it. In the silence they could hear each other's hearts.

"Say, Maaster Sir!" whispered Blob. "Be you fear'd?"

"Ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies," replied Kit. "Be you?"

"Oi dun knaw," replied the cautious lad. "Moi insoide seems koind o

swimmy loike."

"Then stand by to lend a hand with this table when I give the word,"

was all Kit's answer.

He was watching with all his eyes.

Parson and Gentleman were about to clash.

Then a little figure rose out of the earth, and sullen thunder smote

on the silence.

Piper drew a deep breath.

"I thart so," he said, comfortably.

"Who is it?" asked Kit.

"Jack Knapp, sir," said the old man, picking his teeth. "Sneaked a

drum from a travellin showman by the look on it, and tow-rowin like a

rigiment. See him thump it. Ho! ho! That's joy to Jack, I knaw. Now

he's for chargin em, drum and all. Ha! ha!"

Whoever else might escape there was no hope for that wingless old man.

His fate was certain, his end was already come. Within five minutes at

most the great doors would have slammed on him for ever. And here he

sat chuckling like a boy at a fair.

It is something to be a saint, thought Kit, something to be as sure as

that. This old man had built his house upon the Rock indeed.

They watched the stampede, and the Gentleman's vain attempt to stay

it. Their hearts surged to the Parson's battle-cry, and sank to the

Gentleman's thrust, to surge again as Knapp felled his man.

"Knapp'd him a nice un," chuckled the old man, not above a pun at

death's door. "Reglar revellin in it is Knapp, I knaw."

"Our time's coming!" panted Kit. "Stand by, Blob!"

The Gentleman was down, the Gang upon the run. "Now, sir!" cried

Piper. "Now's your chance."

IV

"Now, Blob!--nippy with the table there!"

Out they rushed, and dumped the table down on the left of the door.

"That'll do, sir, thank you," said the old man, trundling out after

them. "That'll cover my flank nicely.... Butter-my-wig!" with kindling

eyes on the battle, "but Mr. Joy's busy."

"Come on, Blob!" yelled Kit.

"Come along, boys!" roared the Parson. "Pretty work forrad, and plenty

for all!"

The Gentleman rose white-faced from his knees.

"A moil a moil" he shouted, waving.

Behind him Kit heard a yell, and the crash and scatter of men storming

down the shingle-bank.

Then silence as they took the grass.

He flung his head across his shoulder as he ran.

The lugger-guard, loosed at last, were hurling across the greensward

at him, bayonets at the charge.

Such tall and terrible men!--and how they strode along, bearskins a-

bob, savage eyes smouldering, snapping fierce phrases at each other

as they came!

Kit loosed his soul in a ghastly scream.

"Back, Blob!"

It was well done, and not difficult to do. He had but to utter the

horror that was in him.

"O, Kit!" came the Parson's resentful bellow.

"I'm afraid!" screamed the lad. "I can't help it. O-o-o-h!"

He ran with huddled head, clutching at the boy before him.

"_Attrapez ces gaillards! Ne tirez pas!_" shouted the Gentleman.

"_Un deux d'entre vous leur coupent le chemin! Les autres, par

ici!_"

"_Ah, oui, mon Général!_" panted the Corporal. "_Francois!

Albert!_"

Two men sprang away from the rest and raced to intercept the boys.

What a pace they ran! Their black-gaitered legs seemed to skim the

ground.

The boy had not allowed for such speed.

"_Toi de l'autre côté de la chaumière. Moi ici!_" called the

swifter of the two.

He flashed behind the cottage, and flashed up again round the gable-

end.

Kit recognised him. It was François, his friend of the dawn.

"Tiens! c'est toi, mon gars!" cried the man, with a quick smile.

A simple countryman, this François, he was a soldier because he had to

be. That business beyond the wall, where the swords and shouts were,

was little to his liking. This was a job after his own heart. He was a

boy playing prisoner's base with another boy. Neither would be hurt.

So as he slewed round the gable-end he smiled.

Kit saw the smile and resented it. It angered him that this fellow did

not take him seriously. He had not to resent it for long.

The smile died a swift and terrible death on François' face.

"_Dâme!_" he screamed, and slithered back on his heels. A musket

barrel was thrusting into his flank.

"_Pray!_" said a solemn voice.

There was a horrible plop as the man collapsed, coughing.

CHAPTER LXX

THE LAST OF OLD FAITHFUL

The old man clapped his smoking musket down, and snatched his cutlass.

"Any more for me, sir?"

"Another on your right, Piper!"

"Very good, sir."

The old man spun himself to the corner, and waited behind the wall.

The boy, running with all his might, watched fascinated.

Round the corner the doomed man whirled with a grin. The cutlass

swooped. The fellow sprawled over his slayer, the shock of the onset

rolling the chair back. The old man shook off the body, as he might

have shaken off a cloak, and backed himself, cutlass bloody in his

mouth.

"In with you, Master Kit!"

"You too!" panted Kit, thrusting the chair before him.

"No, sir, no!" fiercely. "I can do a bit o business here yet." He was

loading swiftly, eyes on the battle. "Starn agin the door, larboard in

the loo'th, and cutlass-room all round--what better can a seaman

want?"

"But--"

"Sharp, sir!--No time to waste. Here they come."

The Gentleman had gathered his Grenadiers in his hand, and was

swinging them back at the cottage.

"In with you, sir!" urged the old man, ablaze. "Bolt and bar."

"O Piper!" whimpering.

"Nelson, sir!"

The word went home. The boy shot in, and slammed the door. All again

was darkness, and Blob breathing heavily at his side.

"I'm through! I'm through!" came a triumphant yell.

Kit's eye was at a crack.

The Parson had broken away from the rout, and was making for the

hills, the despatch-bag flopping in his back.

The Gentleman, leading the charge at the cottage, turned.

"_Abattez moi eel homme là!_" he sang.

A Grenadier dropped to his knee.

Outside the door a musket cracked.

The Grenadier leapt to his feet, whirled round with floating tails,

bowed to his executioner in absurdest doll-fashion, and subsided

languidly into death.

The Parson was away, the Gentleman after him with sleuth-hound

strides.

The bunch of Grenadiers stormed on for the cottage.

Kit shot the bolts.

He was banging the door of life on that maimed old man, and he would

as soon have slammed the gate of heaven in his mother's face.

"Good-bye, _dear_ old Piper!" he whispered.

"Good-bye, sir," cheerily. "And if I might make so bold my sarvice to

Lard Nelson--Ralph Piper, old _Agamemnon_."

There was silence: then the patter of feet and deep breathing of men

racing to kill.

Kit could see the back of the old man's head on a level with his eye,

and just beyond, growing hugely on his gaze, the face of the leading

Grenadier, livid beneath his bearskin.

Kit shut his eyes as he rammed the last bolt home. Close to his ear,

he heard a voice, low as the sea and as deep. It was humming

Soldiers of Christ arise.

That too ceased.

Old Faithful was spitting on his hands.

CHAPTER LXXI

ON THE SHINGLE-BANK

A crash and grunt covered the noise of the front door opening.

Kit peeped out. The way was clear.

"Now, Blob! for your life."

Out the boys sped.

How still it was on this side after the other!

There was a fury of fighting in the distance and a dreadful smothered

worry against the back door; here a tranquil sward, trees bowing, and

the shingle-bank a roan breast-work against a background of silver.

"Run quietly, boy! On your toes like me. You run like a walrus."

"Tidn't me," gasped Blob. "It's ma legs. They keep on a-creakin."

Swiftly they fled across the grass.

Was there anybody at the lugger?--were they free?

The boy was sick with hope.

Behind him he could hear far yells and the occasional clash of steel.

Kit guessed what had happened. The Parson, wary old man of war, his

ruse successful, the enemy drawn off, had flung back into the fight.

So far his plan had worked to a miracle.

The boy recalled Piper's last words.

His sarvice to Lard Nelson!

Piper never doubted then. Piper had been sure.

And Piper was right. The Lord was on their side. He felt it, and his

spirit began to sing.

Then the song died, and his soul with it.

He could hear voices behind the shingle-bank. A double-sentry at the

least had been left over the lugger.

Well, they must go through with it now.

"Knife ready?" he croaked.

"Ye'."

The grass was growing sparse about them. He began to hear his feet. So

did the men beyond the bank. There was the click of a cocking musket.

The fellow was ready: the fellow would pot them at twenty yards as

they came over the crest.

Thought was lost in lightning action.

"Holà, l'ami!" he yelled.

"_Qui vive?_" came the unseen voice.

"Ami! à moi!"

Feet crashed up the shingle. As he topped the crest, a Grenadier, all

eyes and bayonet and bristling chin, was plunging up the steep,

another at his heels. The first flashed his eyes up in the boy's.

"_Sapristi!_" he cried, and tried to come down to the ready. The

shingle roared away beneath his feet. Back he slithered. And as he did

so, Kit launched down on him.

"_Sacré nom!_" the fellow screamed, and toppled back on the

bayonet of his mate.

Kit ran over his falling body into the arms of the other.

"Take the man behind!" he yelled back.

Arms wound about him: a stertorous breathing was at his ear: for a

moment the two rocked, then fell.

The boy was buried alive. A stifling carcase blotted out the sun. His

arms were pinioned, but his hands remained free.

Short-handling his dirk, he turned it in.

"_Assassin!_" muttered the man, in his ear.

Kit pressed and slowly pressed. The man writhed and tried to rise. The

boy's lithe young arms, though they could not squeeze to death, could

hold; and hold they did. The man saw it, ceased to struggle, and

hugged.

Thank God the boy had the under-grip. His arms protected him. Else he

must have burst.

A groan was squeezed out of him.

"_Quittez donc!_" in his ear.

"Jamais," faintly.

He pressed and pressed. The man hugged and hugged. One must give.

Which should it be? Not he, not he, not he, though he fainted. Piper

had been _sure_.

A warm gush spouted out upon his fingers, and trickled down his fore-

arm.

It was horrible. He felt it to be murder, not war. Yet that python-

embrace was squeezing the heart out of his mouth.

Great heavens!--was the man made of iron?--would he never have enough?

Then he felt a prick in his own flesh. Perforce he stayed his hand.

Well, he had done his best. And even at that moment, his brain

swimming to a death-swoon, his humour flashed out of the darkness to

his succour.

If that didn't stop the chap, hang it! he deserved victory.

But it did.

Gently, very gently, the arms relaxed. He could feel the man fading

away and away in his embrace. All that power and stress of life was

pouring out into infinity. The man was dying at his ear. Lying his

length upon the boy, he shuddered from head to heel.

"_Marie_," he sighed.

There was a last ripple of life, and the boy knew he was holding

earth.

He wriggled out into the light with throbbing temples.

His hand and shirt-cuff caught his eye. He started back. They followed

him. He tried to fling his hand away. It would not be flung. He

stared, breathing like a frightened horse.

His jaw dropping, he looked at his handiwork.

The fellow was lying on his face, long legs wide. But for the hilt of

the dirk sticking out of his loins, he looked much as other men. Yet--

he was not. Think! A minute ago--and now! How wonderful it all was,

and how terrible! The mystery of it made chaos in his brain.

He was frightened at himself, even more than at the dead man, or his

deed.

Leaning back on his hands, the man he had killed at his feet, those

instant questions which oppress us all in the rare moments when we

stand still and are compelled by the shock of circumstance to look

inward on ourselves, drummed at his brain.

What was he?--where was he?--why was he?

He staggered to his feet, pressing his hands to his eyes, to try to

recollect his meaning.

He failed, only recalling his mission of the moment.

Shutting his eyes, he grasped the dirk.

"Awful sorry," he whispered hoarsely. "I must," and plucked it forth

with a shudder.

Then he looked up.

The first Grenadier lay spread-eagled on the slope above him.

Blob was crawling out from beneath him, his pink muzzle thrust up with

an air of grave and innocent amazement.

Kit pointed a finger.

"Ha! ha! you do look funny!" he laughed madly. "You're like one of

Magic's puppies poking out to have a first peep at the world."

"Oi loike killin better'n bein kill'd," Blob announced solemnly, and

crept out on hands and knees, a tip of pink tongue travelling about

his lips. Then he turned to his dead.

Kit wound up again.

"Never mind about him," he said, staggering to his feet. "He'll keep.

This way. Bring his musket along. Quick!"

He picked up the musket of his own dead, and swayed blindly down

towards the lugger.

Blob followed at first reluctantly. Then some memory amused him, and

he began to brim slow mirth.

"Er says--'Dear! dear!' and Oi says--'Theer! theer!' and plops it in,

and plops it in."

Still adrift on the sea of his emotions, Kit paid no heed.

He was swimming down the shingle-bank, aware of nothing but the tip of

his nose and vague bad dreams at the back of his heart.

The lugger was lying on the steep of the shingle, poised as though for

launching.

The swarthy jib was bellying seaward. She was yearning for the water.

Kit rallied.

The slope was with them; the wind was with them; the very boat was

with them. And the tide, running in with a splash, already flopped

about her keel.

How soon would she float?

Two minutes might do it--or twenty.

CHAPTER LXXII

THE RACE FOR THE LUGGER

I

There was not a moment to be lost.

"Throw your musket aboard her!" cried Kit, bringing up against the

lugger. "Now put your shoulder to and heave with a will! heave!"

They might as well have tried to move a mountain. Yet even as the boy

strained, a wave shot up and sluiced his feet. And how that cold clasp

warmed his heart!

The tide was tumbling in, the Lord God thrusting it. A minute, a

little minute, and they would be away.

"Aboard her, Blob!" he panted. "That's right, clumsy! Noisy does it!

Now chuck every single thing you can lay hands on, overboard--except

the muskets, idiot!"

Fiercely the boys set to work. Kits and cans, ballast and blocks,

spare spars and tackle, higgledy-piggledy overboard they went, some on

the shingle, some splashing into the tide, to be snatched and tumbled

and ducked.

As yet they were not discovered. Kit working madly in the belly of the

boat could see nothing; but afar he could hear the Parson's terrible

roar, and Knapp's crisp,

"_Ow's that-a-tat, ow's that?_"

Somehow, only the Lord knew how, those two inspired warriors still

kept the ring.

It was great, but it could not last. The end must come, and it must

come soon.

Anxiously the boy peeped over the side. The tide seemed to mock them.

With what a swoop it rushed to their rescue, and with what a scream of

derision it withdrew again! Kit compared it unconsciously to the to

and fro of the emotions in his heart, now surging him heaven-high, now

leaving him stranded.

Then he spied a greased bat for launching lying on the slope. In a

trice he was overboard, had seized it, and racing down the streaming

shingle as a wave withdrew, thrust the bat beneath the keel. The wave

curled, stemmed by the advancing water, and swept about him to the

knee.

As it clasped the lugger, a puff of wind leapt from the land, and

skirmished across the sea.

The jib filled to it, and strained seaward.

Was he wrong?--or did she stir and tremble, like a girl to her lover?

How to help her?

If they could hoist the main-sail!

He was back over the side in a moment.

The boat was clean-swept now of everything but the muskets and a mess

of shingle for ballast at the bottom. The anchor had gone over the

stern and trailed on the slope. Even Blob had disappeared.

Kit pushed at the boom to thrust it over.

"Blob! Blob! where are you?"

"Here Oi be!" panted a voice forward.

Kit turned to see Blob, his shoulders rounded, and arms taut, heaving

at the main-mast.

"She wun't budge!" he cried, his face crimson with honest effort.

"Seems she's grow'd in loike."

"Fool!" he cried. "Lend a hand with the boom here! Shove, boy, shove!

--Now on to the main-brace! No, fool, no!--Here--on to this! Now all

together--heave! heave! heave!"

The great sail rose, groaning terribly.

Heaven send the smugglers hadn't heard!

But they had.

II

So much a far scream told them.

"We're seen!" panted Kit. "Now whistle for the wind, my boy, and hand

me that musket."

The water was slopping all about the lugger. Empty as a barrel she

began to rock to the rocking of the tide. A puff would launch her.

The boy glanced seaward.

Over there was that white glimmer, clearer now. It was like the arm of

a drowning woman flinging up for help. The glimpse of it inspired the

boy.

"I'm coming, sir," he called across the waters. "One more fight

first."

He hitched his belt. Now he had no doubt of the issue. Here his

friend, the sea, was beside him, whispering to him, loving him,

taunting him. She was his hope, his heart, his strength. And for the

first time it flashed upon the lad what the fight was really for. It

was for her, the World's Woman. She went to the Victor, and she was on

his side: for he was England, and England had won her first, and, true

woman that she was, she clove to her first conqueror.

III

They were coming.

He thrilled to them.

"Now, Blob! you take that side. I'll take this. Pick off a man as he

comes over the crest. Then out knives, and do your best!"

He leapt on to the taffrail, balancing by the mizzen. Tiptoeing so, he

could just see over the crest of the shingle-bank.

And he was never to forget the sight he then saw.

Towards him across the greensward, a torrent of men streamed like a

tide-race, silent all.

A huge Grenadier led them. Behind in a bunch came the smugglers, Fat

George shambling along in the midst with a fury of arm-work. As his

swifter comrades passed him, he clutched at them covetously.

"_Ands off!_" screamed a lanky lad.

The fat man's knife flashed. The lad fell.

The others raced on. What was it to them?

As they came, they tossed up tormented faces. Their eyes were peep-

holes. Through them he stared into the bottomless pit, and there

beheld things not meant for human vision.

His eyes passed with relief to the wholesome ugliness of the little

Englishman pounding at the smugglers' heels.

Knapp had dropped his drumsticks, and was limping along now naked-

fisted. His eyes were shut, and his running drawers red in patches as

his tunic. He was merry no more, his head on one shoulder, labouring

painfully in his stride. It was clear that he was hard-hit, and just

as clear that he meant going through to the finish.

Behind him three Grenadiers, one behind the other, strung out across

the green. The Parson coursed the last of them; the Gentleman coursed

the Parson.

They were all running swiftly, but the last two were the swiftest.

The Parson was gaining on the Grenadier, and the Gentleman on the

Parson.

It was such a race as Kit had never seen before.

Which would reach his man first?

On that, it seemed to his prophetic vision, hung all.

He tried to yell,

"Come on, sir!"

But his voice stuck as in a nightmare, and seemed to suffocate him.

A blade soared and swooped.

"_One!_" came the Parson's voice, clear across the green, as he

took the falling man in his stride.

The Gentleman, hard at his heels, tripped over the dead man.

Collected as always, he snatched the fellow's musket, and sprawling on

his face, fired at the Parson's back.

A smuggler fell.

"_Thank ye!_" gasped the Parson. "_Two!_" as the second

Grenadier went down.

Then the flight of men, pursuer and pursued, dipped out of sight; but

Kit could hear the stampede of feet behind the bank racing towards

him, then a hiss and stumbling fall.

"_Three!_" panted the Parson's voice, and in a dying roar,

"_Mind yourselves, boys! They're on you_."

IV

"Ready, Blob!"

The boy was white as steel.

He had no body. He was not afraid.

Nelson was calling him, and he should not call in vain.

Over the crest stormed the leading Grenadier, monstrous-seeming

against the sky.

Kit fired at the man's cross-belts.

Down the shingle the fellow sprawled, whether dead or alive, wounded

or whole, Kit knew not till he splashed into the water, and lay still

in the flop of the tide.

Behind him came the smugglers.

As they topped the crest a star hung above their heads, then fell,

flashing.

"_Four--and--five!_" came the Parson's voice.

"He's on us!" screamed Dingy Joe. "Sword and all!"

They broke away to right and left along the ridge like a covey of

partridges when the hawk swoops.

Anything to get away from that avenging voice roaring out of a

whirlwind of lightnings!

"After em, Knapp!"

Slung along by his own impetus, the Parson hurled down the steep.

"Warm work!" he panted, grinning luridly at the boy, and he brought up

with a bang against the lugger.

As he shocked against the boat, the great tan sail filled. Shock and

wind together gave the necessary impulse. The lugger, light as a

bubble, swayed, slithered, crunched down the shingle, felt the greased

bat, and took the water with a dip and lovely curtsey.

"We're through!" roared the Parson, sprawling upon the side.

CHAPTER LXXIII

NOBLESSE OBLIGE

I

The anchor was trailing down the shingle-bank after them.

The Gentleman had picked it up, and came walking down the slope,

leaning back a little as he came.

He was smiling the brave man's wistful smile.

He had lost and he knew it.

Blob snatched a musket and aimed at his waistcoat.

The Parson struck up the barrel.

"Your friends are safe, sir," he called, hoarse and quiet. "I've burnt

the despatches."

"They don't deserve to be, but thank you all the same," replied the

other as quiet.

He let the anchor go. It fell with a splash into the water.

"I salute a gallant soldier, a gallant sailor, and my friend Monsieur

Moon-calf!" he said, and stood, the water to his ankles, and hilt to

his lips.

II

On the ridge the man-pack was at the worry.

Suddenly a face gleamed up through the thick of them.

"_Sir!_" screamed a voice.

The Parson started round.

"Knapp!" he cried, with sickening face. "Put back!"

A hand was on his shoulder. It was Kit.

The boy did not speak; he did not weep; he pointed seaward to where a

topsail flashed white on the horizon.

The Parson looked at the green waters swinging by.

"And I can't swim!" he groaned. "God forgive me!"

An inspiration seized him.

He leapt on to the taffrail.

"Sir," he shouted, pointing, "that's a brave man!"

The Gentleman turned and saw the bloody business going on behind him.

"I am the servant of the brave," he cried, and stormed back.

The Parson sat down, and broke into tears.

BOOK IV

_NELSON_

I

H.M.S. _MEDUSA_

CHAPTER LXXIV

NATURE, THE COMFORTER