They found the lieutenant and Captain Ogilvy stretched on the grass,
smoking their pipes together. The daylight had almost deepened into
night, and a few stars were beginning to twinkle in the sky.
"Hey! what have we here--smugglers?" cried the captain, springing up
rather quickly, as Ruby came unexpectedly on them.
"Just so, uncle," said Minnie, with a laugh. "We have here some gin,
smuggled all the way from Holland, and have come to ask your opinion of
it."
"Why, Ruby, how came you by this?" enquired Lindsay in amazement, as he
examined the kegs with critical care.
"Suppose I should say that I have been taken into confidence by the
smugglers and then betrayed them."
"I should reply that the one idea was improbable, and the other
impossible," returned the lieutenant.
"Well, I have at all events found out their secrets, and now I reveal
them."
In a few words Ruby acquainted his friends with all that has just been
narrated.
The moment he had finished, the lieutenant ordered his men to launch the
boat. The kegs were put into the stern-sheets, the party embarked, and,
pushing off, they rowed gently out of the bay, and crept slowly along
the shore, under the deep shadow of the cliffs.
"How dark it is getting!" said Minnie, after they had rowed for some
time in silence.
"The moon will soon be up," said the lieutenant. "Meanwhile I'll cast a
little light on the subject by having a pipe. Will you join me,
captain?"
This was a temptation which the captain never resisted; indeed, he did
not regard it as a temptation at all, and would have smiled at the idea
of resistance.
"Minnie, lass," said he, as he complacently filled the blackened bowl,
and calmly stuffed down the glowing tobacco with the end of that
marvellously callous little fingers, "it's a wonderful thing that baccy.
I don't know what man would do without it."
"Quite as well as woman does, I should think," replied Minnie.
"I'm not so sure of that, lass. It's more nat'ral for man to smoke than
for woman. Ye see, woman, lovely woman, should be `all my fancy painted
her, both lovely and divine.' It would never do to have baccy perfumes
hangin' about her rosy lips."
"But, uncle, why should man have the disagreeable perfumes you speak of
hanging about _his_ lips?"
"I don't know, lass. It's all a matter o' feeling. `'Twere vain to
tell thee all I feel, how much my heart would wish to say;' but of this
I'm certain sure, that I'd never git along without my pipe. It's like
compass, helm, and ballast all in one. Is that the moon, leftenant?"
The captain pointed to a faint gleam of light on the horizon, which he
knew well enough to be the moon; but he wished to change the subject.
"Ay is it, and there comes a boat. Steady, men! lay on your oars a
bit."
This was said earnestly. In one instant all were silent, and the boat
lay as motionless as the shadows of the cliffs among which it was
involved.
Presently the sound of oars was heard. Almost at the same moment, the
upper edge of the moon rose above the horizon, and covered the sea with
rippling silver. Ere long a boat shot into this stream of light, and
rowed swiftly in the direction of Arbroath.
"There are only two men in it," whispered the lieutenant.
"Ay, these are my good friends Swankie and Spink, who know a deal more
about other improper callings besides smuggling, if I did not greatly
mistake their words," cried Ruby.
"Give way, lads!" cried the lieutenant.
The boat sprang at the word from her position under the cliffs, and was
soon out upon the sea in full chase of the smugglers, who bent to their
oars more lustily, evidently intending to trust to their speed.
"Strange," said the lieutenant, as the distance between the two began
sensibly to decrease, "if these be smugglers, with an empty boat, as you
lead me to suppose they are, they would only be too glad to stop and let
us see that they had nothing aboard that we could touch. It leads me to
think that you are mistaken, Ruby Brand, and that these are not your
friends."
"Nay, the same fact convinces me that they are the very men we seek; for
they said they meant to have some game with you, and what more amusing
than to give you a long, hard chase for nothing?"
"True; you are right. Well, we will turn the tables on them. Take the
helm for a minute, while I tap one of the kegs."
The tapping was soon accomplished, and a quantity of the spirit was
drawn off into the captain's pocket-flask.
"Taste it, captain, and let's have your opinion." Captain Ogilvy
complied. He put the flask to his lips, and, on removing it, smacked
them, and looked at the party with that extremely grave, almost solemn
expression, which is usually assumed by a man when strong liquid is
being put to the delicate test of his palate.
"Oh!" exclaimed the captain, opening his eyes very wide indeed.
What "oh" meant, was rather doubtful at first; but when the captain put
the flask again to his lips, and took another pull, a good deal longer
than the first, much, if not all of the doubt was removed.
"Prime! nectar!" he murmured, in a species of subdued ecstasy, at the
end of the second draught.
"Evidently the right stuff," said Lindsay, laughing.
"Liquid streams--celestial nectar,
Darted through the ambient sky,--"