Front matter (continued 5)

Nance was still groping for his motives, but a fresh drift of thought obscured the main issue. Out of it emerged a clear spark, shining in the thick of her bewilderment, the thought that she would be under the same roof as Jasper Benham, and that she might be able to help Jeremy in his plans for a release.

"Since you are ready to use force, I do not see how we are to resist you."

"Sweet Nance, roughness is very far from my desire."

"I will be ready."

She might have seen him smiling at her surrender. He could keep step with her motives, and visualise her girl's plans even before she had conceived them.

"Then I will leave you to wake your father."

"Yes."

"I shall wait for you in the hall."

Nance dressed, and went to her father's room. She had to wake him and to tell him what had happened. Durrell, in the thick of his contemptuous amazement at De Rothan's audacity, absolutely refused to leave Stonehanger.

"But, father, what are we to do? We are in the man's power."

"Refuse to do anything."

He persisted in remaining in bed, and Nance had to leave him, and go down alone into the hall. A lantern stood on the oak chair by the door, and De Rothan was standing with his back to it. He came forward gallantly when he saw Nance upon the stairs.

"Nance, you will forgive these highwayman's methods. I cannot help myself. It is for the best."

He would have taken her hand, but she held aloof, pausing upon one of the lower steps. His elaborate courtesy repelled her. It was artificial. The half-amused and half-triumphant glint in his eyes betrayed the real man.

"Father refuses to leave the house."

"I am sorry. I shall have to persuade him. You will pardon me."

She barred the way.

"No—no roughness; he is an old man."

"You misjudge me; I am not a cut-throat. A few gentle words will serve."

He turned, picked up the lantern, and came back toward the stairs. His eyes were fixed upon Nance's eyes, and he smiled as he passed her.

"Why will you not do me justice?"

His voice caressed her, and she shrank aside, as though from physical contact. For the moment a great dread of the man made her wild to escape, but she steadied herself and remained true to her purpose.

De Rothan walked into Anthony Durrell's room and held the lantern over the bed.

"Get up, sir, get up. When I offer you my hospitality are you childish enough to refuse it?"

"I refuse to leave this house."

"Is that so? Then I shall have to take your daughter and leave you behind."

Durrell started up in bed, vehement and scornful.

"You are an abominable rogue, De Rothan."

"No, sir, I play to make my point. Are you coming with us, or must Nance and I go alone?"

Durrell rose and began to dress.

Nance was sitting in the half-lit hall. She could see a man standing in the stone parlour with a lantern in his hand. He was watching her through the open doorway as though he had been left on guard. Nance was wondering whether it was possible for her to get at David Barfoot and leave some message with him for Jeremy Winter. She racked her brains for some ruse, some excuse.

Why should she not try being boldly frank, and challenge interference? She rose and walked toward the passage leading into the kitchen, only to become conscious of some live thing filling the darkness. She recoiled. Another man was on guard there. She had almost felt his breath upon her face.

"Pardon, madame, there ees no way heer."

She returned to the hall in time to see the light of De Rothan's lantern coming down the stairs. He radiated a triumphant tranquillity, and smiled at her with whimsical satisfaction.

"Mr. Durrell accepts my hospitality."

"You were able to persuade him?"

"With ease."

In twenty minutes they were in the yard, and De Rothan's men unfastening the horses. De Rothan had suffered Nance to go up and pack a small valise. He waited for her and for Anthony Durrell, and bowed them out into the yard. They had brought two spare mounts, a quiet old nag for Anthony Durrell, and De Rothan's favourite mare Étoile for Nance.

He hung near to Nance, overshadowing her with his presence.

"We have improvised a saddle for you. Étoile is very quiet. Let me help you up."

"Thank you—I can——"

"Pardon me, you cannot."

His confident courtesy dominated her, and she did not care to bicker with him.

"Step into my hand. So."

He lifted her up into the seat that was half pannier, half saddle. Gaston and François had hoisted Durrell on to the old horse. De Rothan mounted his own, drew up beside Nance, and took Étoile's bridle. They rode out under the hollies and laurels and across the little stone bridge into the lane.

It was a fine night, splendid with stars. The world was black and silent and breathing in its sleep to the faint drift of a light sea breeze. The air was fresh and dewy. On Stonehanger Common a wood of birch trees with their delicate fingers caressed the stars.

De Rothan drew deep breaths.

"A southern night, and full of the smell of adventure. Has the desire to wander at will over the world ever come to you?"

She mistrusted the intimacy of his mood, and his nearness to her. Moreover, her thoughts were working against him, planning and scheming perpetually.

"I am so very sleepy."

She felt that he was looking at her.

"Poor Nance, poor girl. You shall go to bed, and not be worried."

He was silent a moment, and she hated him because he seemed so confident.

"Mr. Benham will be asleep. But to-morrow we shall have a stupendous surprise for him. Yes, you shall see him. He will be overwhelmed."

She kept a white and stark reserve.

"You do not thank me! Am I not the kindest of friends? You will find me even more sympathetic than the little fencing-master with the black jowl. Besides, I have the fly in amber, and he has not."

Nance yawned behind her hand.

"You have a wonderful imagination, Chevalier."

He leaned over and stroked the mare's neck.

"Étoile, you are carrying the Queen of Hearts to-night. She is very proud, my child. She twists her mouth at your master."

It was two in the morning when they reached the Brick House. There were candles burning and supper set out in the oak dining-room. De Rothan was grandiloquent and gracious. He bowed them in as though he put the whole house at their service.

Durrell was morose and bitter, and Nance tired. Neither wine nor food was welcome. Distraught and restless, they avoided each other's eyes.

De Rothan called for candles.

"Mr. Durrell, I will show you and your daughter to your rooms."

Their rooms were on the first floor, but not next to one another. De Rothan gave Nance her candle and threw open the door for her.

"Good night, Miss Nance. There is a little bell within. Ring it if you should desire anything."

He turned back to show Anthony Durrell to his room.

Nance was standing looking about her at the mahogany furniture, the gay chintzes, the carved low-post bed. She put the candle down, opened the window, and looked out. Garden ground seemed to lie some fifteen feet below; it was all black, but she saw something that glimmered like water. She was still standing there when she heard the key turned in the lock of her door. Footsteps died away down the passage. She realised that she was a prisoner.

It was still early when Tom Stook came lumbering on his long shanks to Rush Heath Hall. He asked for Mr. Jeremy, and Jeremy came out to him on the grass before the house.

"He have gone and stole the young leddy and her father."

"What, man, what?"

"They be at t' Brick House. De Rothan brought 'en back from Stonehanger two hours after midnight."

Jeremy swore a big oath.

"Caught napping—by God!"

XXXIII

Jeremy sent Tom Stook back to lie in Yew-Tree Wood and watch De Rothan's house. He himself snapped up a brisk breakfast, mounted his horse, and rode straight to Stonehanger.

Here he found David Barfoot in mighty perplexity and distress, and looking like an old man who had been robbed of all his savings in the night. The whole matter was a mystery to him, especially the smashed window in the parlour. He nearly danced before Jeremy, and began to shout the news at him.

"Kidnapped or murdered, sir, and me asleep like a pig!"

Winter had learned to speak so that David could understand him. It was a question of very distinct lip movements, deliberation, and the use of simple and familiar words.

"Kidnapped they have been, David, but not murdered. The Chevalier de Rothan is guilty of this."

"The tarrifying villain! He be'unt fur doing Miss Nance any wrong?"

"He had better not, David. We have got to see to that."

"God bless me—sure."

"I want you to help."

"I'll take my holly cudgel, and crack t' Frenchman's head."

Jeremy smiled grimly. He liked that kind of wrath.

"Hold up, David, that would not do at all. We have got a rotten plank to walk on and if we are too heavy it may break and let us down. Listen to me now. I have got something to trust you with."

Winter told him the truth about Stonehanger, and also how De Rothan held Jasper Benham a prisoner. David's eyes grew more and more astonished as he picked up these amazing facts from Jeremy's lips.

"Mr. Durrell in wid t' French! Bother my bones—I'm fair beat!"

"He's in with them no longer, David. We have got to outwit this rogue of a Frenchman. I want you to help us."

"Sure."

"I want you to go to the Brick House. Be as innocent as a lamb, and try to get a few words with your mistress. Tell her I know what has happened, that De Rothan's house is being watched, and that if she can help us from the inside, so much the better. Ask her to tell you which is the window of her room, and that three blinks of a candle or a lantern at night will stand for a signal."

David scratched his beard.

"Maybe they'll not be fur letting me see her."

"That's certain. You have got to fox them if you can."

"Sure."

"You'll find me at the Queen's Head, Sedlescombe."

"I'll lock up t' house and go this very hour."

David, like many a quiet and rather dour old man, had had his adventures as a youngster. Orchard-raiding, smuggling, poaching, had all come easily, and he had retained that primitive rustic cunning that is never wholly lost despite a bent back and the Bible. Jeremy had told him of the charcoal-burners in Yew-Tree Wood and of Tom Stook lying in ambush like a great lean hound. David knew Tom Stook, and Tom Stook knew David. They were dogs who had poached and ratted together.

David made for Yew-Tree Wood that morning, and found Tom Stook lying along the limb of an oak with a bottle under his chin, for it was July and hot weather. They gave and received explanations, grinning solemnly at each other under the shade of the trees.

"De Rothan be gone Guestling way."

"Sure?"

"I saw him go out on his nag. To get a word wid t' lady—be that it?"

"Ay."

"It be'unt safe to whack in and fight 'em. Mr. Winter he be sly. I've seed her at her window."

"Have ye?"

"At t' back o' t' house. Sure, Dave, ain't Farmer Cross's bull bruk out o' t' meadow, gored Will Gray, and come rampin' down yonder?"

David looked at Tom Stook and grinned. It was amazing how well he could hear the vernacular on occasions.

"Sine—and t' beast be blood mad!"

"We be after him."

"Runnin' five mile!"

"And t' brute be tarrifyin' t' whole country——"

"Sure."

"We seed him go down into t' Brick House meadows."

They cut hazel-sticks and started off on this yokel's game, running heavily and clumsily after the fashion of hobnailed countrymen. They made straight toward the Brick House, scrambling through hedges, flourishing their sticks, and shouting to imaginary comrades.

"He be down yonder, Dave."

"Sure."

"I saw him break into t' garden."

They pounded on, sweating, shouting, flourishing their sticks. A head appeared at an upper window, and then disappeared. David and Tom Stook blundered through into the Brick House garden. A man came running round the corner of the house, a pistol in his pocket, and his hand on the butt thereof.

Stook bawled at him.

"T' mad bull, man, have ye seen him?"

The Frenchman stared, watchful and suspicious.

"I see no bull."

Stook carried it through. He looked broiled and boisterous, the heated hero of a five-mile run.

"He bruk through t' hedge here. He be blood mad."

He blundered on, and the Frenchman seemed caught by his hairy and vigorous enthusiasm. They ran round the house together, David remaining behind. He had seen someone come to an upper window.

"Miss Nance, we be after ye——"

Nance was looking down at him.

"David! Oh, be careful!"

"I know, miss. Mr. Winter has his eyes open. Be that your window?"

She nodded.

"There is a great cistern full of water under it, David. I thought I might have let myself down."

He stole up, and glimpsed a big brick tank into which all the rain-water was guttered from the roof. Trying it with his hazel stick he found he could not reach the bottom. And it was directly under Nance's window.

"Drat 'em. Don't ye fear, Miss Nance, we be on the watch. Three glints of a lantern on t' hillside or three glints o' t' candle in your window will serve as a signal."

"Yes, David."

"I'd better be after that there bull!"

He ran on and overtook Tom Stook and the Frenchman who were on the edge of the paddock. Stook was scratching a hot head and looking puzzled.

"Damn t' beast, Dave. He be gone along t' bottom. I could have swore be bruk into t' garden."

"Get on then, man——"

"I be that dry——"

"God badger t' drink. He'll be goring some other body. Run, Tom, run."

They ran, breathing hard, and pounding the grass with their heavy boots. The Frenchman stood and stared. They were just lumbering, red-faced yokels so far as he was concerned, and he believed contemptuously in the existence of the bull. The bovine seriousness, and especially Tom Stook's thirst, had convinced him of their stolid, sweating sincerity.

No more was heard of the mad bull, though Jasper had heard the shouts of the two men as they ran down through the fields. The window had been jammed by Gaston's broad figure. Then Gaston had hurried away, locking the door after him.

De Rothan had been to Rye, and since there were folk of French extraction in Rye town, and money was as useful there as anywhere, De Rothan had long ago been able to assure himself of a friend or two among the smuggling, seafaring folk. De Rothan had discovered a man who would have sold King George and both Houses of Parliament for a bag of guineas. The man who served him was the working owner of a fishing boat, and one of the most noisy of the Rye patriots. His boat had even been used as one of the coast patrols between Rye and Hastings, so that the fellow was in a position to be very useful to De Rothan.

De Rothan and the Rye man had met as though by chance on the flats between Rye and Winchelsea. They had stopped and gossiped under a thorn-tree by one of the dikes, De Rothan on his horse, concealed by no attempt at concealment. The Rye man had gone home with gold pieces tied up in a red handkerchief, and De Rothan had ridden back by way of Guestling and Westfield to the Brick House.

He was told of the incident of the mad bull, and smiled over it. None of De Rothan's French servants knew that David Barfoot had seized a chance of speaking to Nance Durrell.

Dinner was laid for three, and De Rothan, with the keys of the two bedrooms in his pocket, went up to release his two guests and to bring them down to dine. He opened Durrell's door and found the scholar reading by the window.

"Mr. Anthony, I consider your safety to be so important that I have taken the liberty of keeping your door locked. We will conduct your daughter down to dinner."

Durrell said nothing. He put his book aside, and joined De Rothan in the gallery outside Nance's door.

"Miss Nance, your father and I wait for you to dine with us."

They descended to the panelled room. The man François waited at table, Nance and her father sitting opposite each other, De Rothan taking the head. The conversation was largely a monologue on his part, a pretence at making an ambiguous situation seem natural and honest.

"I cannot help wishing that Mr. Benham were with us; the party would be complete. But Mr. Benham is disinclined to leave his room. He even seemed angry when I told him that you were here."

Nance stared at the bowl of roses in front of her. Anthony Durrell glanced slantwise at De Rothan. His enmity was austere and solemn.

"I may eat your food, Chevalier, but I do not touch your hypocrisy."

"That is a fanatical and rather illogical temper. You do not like my wine, sir, and yet you drink it!"

"I eat to live, but I do not live to lie."

His angry sententiousness amused De Rothan.

"Leave the little moral problems at the bottom of your glass, Mr. Anthony. Why, a month ago you were not so particular. Besides, François here understands English. We need not hang our prejudices out to dry before our servants."

The rest of the meal dragged through in silence. Nance, sitting with downcast eyes, heard De Rothan proposing a walk in the garden.

"I must find you some sweet corner, Miss Nance, where you can dabble your hands among flowers. I am not forgetting that you may like to take a posy up to Mr. Benham."

His ironical good humour troubled her. The garden was a garden of clipped yews, brick paths, and rank green grass, but Nance and her father were distraught and restless, moving and speaking as though under compulsion. Nance had a vague hope that Jeremy might leap up from somewhere, and that De Rothan's cunningly balanced house of cards might come tumbling about his head. But he seemed gay and debonair, inspired by a mischievous and cynical courtesy that bubbled over into playfulness.

"Will you not gather some flowers for Mr. Benham?"

Nance was too much in earnest to be able to match his flippant irony.

"No? You will not? And yet in half an hour or so we are going to pay this youngster a visit. It was a promise, was it not? I always keep my promises."

His voice made Nance afraid, it was so callous and so confident.

"When shall I see Mr. Benham?"

"Now, if you like."

She gave De Rothan a puzzled and mistrustful look. What was he trying to bring about? What were his motives?

"As you please."

"Come, then. Mr. Durrell, we will leave you for a few minutes."

Durrell looked fixedly at De Rothan.

"Chevalier——"

De Rothan guessed what his thoughts were and what he wished to say. He bowed to the father, and then to Nance.

"Sir, your whole attitude is one of unjustified distrust. I love my friends—if I hate my enemies. Miss Nance is far safer in my house than if she were at Stonehanger."

Durrell blinked self-consciously under frowning eyebrows.

"I wish to take you at your word, De Rothan."

"Follow your inclinations, my good friend. Miss Nance, are you afraid to follow me into my own house?"

She looked at him steadily, feeling that it was necessary that she should show no fear.

"No."

"That is good. Come."

She was struck by the intent, shrewd, but half-mocking look he gave her.

XXXIV

De Rothan led Nance to the attic story of the Brick House, talking all the while with a gay and railing vivacity that sharpened the edge of her feeling of suspense.

"Mr. Benham is so valuable to me that I have to lodge him high up near the gods. You may find him a little moody. It seems, too, that a certain display of dirt and disorder helps him to maintain an attitude of resentment and independence. Have you ever heard of pride refusing soap and water?"

She felt that there was an abominable cleverness about this man that might succeed in turning her finer instincts into ridicule. It was the old trick of throwing some evil-smelling stuff over a man's coat just as he was about to meet the woman of his desire. It might be contemptible and sordid, but the taint lingered and offended the senses.

They, passed along the gallery and stopped before a stout oak door. De Rothan knocked gently.

The man Gaston was within, and he appeared to fling the door open with studied suddenness, showing Jasper Benham sprawling on his bed of straw. He was asleep and snoring, head hanging back over a rough bolster stuffed with straw, his face flaccid and vacant, his shirt open at the throat. That one glimpse of him was a shock to Nance. De Rothan had come near persuading her to be disgusted.

Gaston went out, closing the door, while De Rothan walked across to Jasper and stood looking down at him with pleased vindictiveness.

"Mr. Benham—sir, wake up; here is a lady to see you. You see how he sleeps, Miss Nance, this fat young Sussex ox. Wake up, sir, wake up."

He touched Jasper with his foot, and Jasper woke up, snarling.

"Curse you! Let me alone!"

"Mr. Benham, here is a friend to see you."

Jasper sat up and caught sight of Nance. His face showed utter astonishment, nor was it lovely to look upon with its sprouting beard, uncombed hair, and streakings of dirt. His irons made a ridiculous jangling. There was much in the picture to provoke laughter and pity.

"Mr. Benham, do you not recognise the lady?"

Jasper did not look at De Rothan. The sudden heat of his angry humiliation was too bitter and too fierce in him. His eyes fixed themselves on Nance's shoes; nor had he a word to say.

"Come, Mr. Benham, come—are you not pleased?"

There was a sneer in De Rothan's voice, and it stung Nance to the quick. A sudden great pity carried her away. Jasper was humbled before her and before his enemy, and this shame of his transfigured all that was uncouth and ridiculous. It was she who felt humiliated and sneered at.

She turned on De Rothan.

"I understand now. I did not understand before."

He shrugged his shoulders, but the scorn and anger in her eyes stung him.

"My child, this is what we call romance. You do not seem to appreciate the opportunities I am giving you. No mere humdrum, thread-and-needle experiences——"

She regarded him steadily, thoughtfully, and then turned to Jasper.

"It sounds so empty to say that I am sorry."

Her voice made him look up. It seemed to uplift his courage and his pride, and to rescue him from the foolish squalor of his surroundings.

"Don't worry about me, Nance. It comes of my own conceit. But why are you here?"

Her eyes shone angrily.

"Because, like you, I have been kidnapped."

"You, too!"

"Yes, and I know everything."

Jasper met De Rothan's eyes, and De Rothan smiled at him.

"If circumstances admitted it, my dear young people, I would leave you alone together. But——"

Nance ignored him.

"Jasper, it makes me burn with anger——"

His eyes no longer shirked hers, and even his grime and his uncouthness heightened the tragic note that she persisted in hearing.

"I treated our friend here as a gentleman. It was foolish of me. Chevalier, I never ought to have let you out of that ditch."

De Rothan jerked a laugh, and Nance's eyes flashed to Jasper's. They said, "Well done, throw your scorn in his face."

He showed her his chained wrists.

"Pretty things, these, as the result of an affair of honour. Do you know, Nance, he had his men hidden in Darvel's Wood to pelt me with stones so that I should not hurt him."

She gave a dry little laugh, and glanced at De Rothan.

"That was very brave and honourable."

His sudden arrogance showed that he was growing out of patience with their scorn.

"Miss Nance, you have not the sense yet to know men, and the ways of men. If you were only five years older, and if you had been married to Mr. Benham here for five years, I should have had more hope of you. Still, it may be good for you both to remember that I am the man in power."

Jasper eyed him meaningly.

"You can be as insolent to me as you please, but——"

"Mr. Benham, let us have no fool's bellowing. I say what I please, even to a woman. I have brought you two together to see how weak in the head my poor Nance here might, be. It is a bad case, but I shall cure her. Gaston, you can come in."

The man entered, smothering a grin.

"Now, my most sweet lady——"

He shepherded Nance out with a sweep of the arm, but she went slowly, holding her pride aloof, and giving Jasper a look that he could treasure.

Nance went to her room, De Rothan following her to the door, and bowing as she entered. She heard the key turned in the lock, and then De Rothan's footsteps dying away down the stairs.

Nance went to the window, and, leaning her elbows on the sill, looked across toward the oak wood on the hill to the west of the house. What was De Rothan's ultimate desire with regard to her, and did he believe in the crushing of England by Napoleon's army of invasion? Supposing this should happen, what would become of them all? She saw not only herself, but Jasper and her father at the mercy of a man who would be in a position to satisfy any vindictive whim or passion.

Nance had travelled beyond mere amazement. Incredible things had happened, and were happening. Even the seemingly quiet life that her father had led all these years had been but the fitting-out of the ship of adventure. Monotony indeed! The prudish stolidity of English life! And yet there were people who lived as though all the world was a comfortable breakfast-table, little people who dabbled with their teaspoons, and for whom time was spaced out by a change of underclothing and the donning of a Sunday hat.

Nance kept asking herself, "What is Jeremy Winter doing?" For Jeremy seemed their one hope, the one man capable of dealing with this devil of a Frenchman. She knew that Jeremy had to be sly and cautious, yet this very cautiousness had begun to try her patience. She wanted things to happen, quickly and even violently. She wanted Jasper freed, and De Rothan confounded. The suspense would be intolerable, with this man holding her at his mercy.

Meanwhile De Rothan had rejoined Durrell in the garden—Durrell, whose face carried an expression of resentful bewilderment. He was so little of a man of action that he was still gaping at the events of the previous night. The whole adventure would be over and done with before he had decided what part he ought to play.

De Rothan twitted him maliciously.

"Come, come, friend Durrell, put away that grieved look. I have all these people in the hollow of my hand, and for the glory of La Belle France, and Liberty. A month ago you would have been patting me on the shoulder."

Durrell looked at him with an old man's thin distrust.

"Yes, but what are your plans?"

"Why, to pick up some of these fine English estates, to live as one of the grandees of the Empire, to marry and found a family!"

"That is all very magnificent, but——"

"Men of courage are ready to meet the 'buts' of life. A general has his line of retreat as well as his line of advance. You will not object to joining me if I have to return to France!"

"What do you mean?"

"If we are foiled I shall not leave you behind to be hanged. I am too good a comrade. I shall take you and Nance back with me to France."

Durrell stood open-mouthed, staring, and De Rothan smiled at his amazed face.

"The idea surprises you! You are struck by it, eh?"

"De Rothan, I have had enough of this monstrous fooling."

"Will it be fooling if I marry your daughter?"

"Sir?"

"Save your emotions."

"You think you can marry Nance!"

"There are three reasons why I should marry her. Because I desire to, because she does not desire me to, and because Mr. Jasper Benham will be struck across the face. Motives indeed! Our motives in life are curiously complex. I love complexities, entanglements, quarrels. Am I a man for a tame hare? Psst! Durrell, if a woman provokes me I like her all the better."

Durrell stared at him in impotent indignation.

"You are beyond me, De Rothan, and yet not beyond me."

"Indeed, I should not have to go far! What time is it? I think I shall have to request you to be locked up in your room."

That night Nance watched at her window, sitting there in the darkness with a cloak over her shoulders. She had heard De Rothan pass along the gallery, pause outside her door, and then walk on toward his room. When the dusk fell she had managed to push an oak chest against the door so that no one could force their way in without waking her if she were asleep.

The house seemed very silent, and the summer night was a noiseless glitter of stars. Now and again she heard the faint splashing of water as frogs leapt in the great rain-water cistern below her window.

It was past midnight when Nance saw a glimmer out in the woods on the opposite hillside. It moved to and fro three times, and then disappeared. Nance had brought a tinder-box with her, and a candle stood on the little table at her elbow. It took her some time to get a light, but she managed it and moved the candle to and fro three times across the window. Then she blew it out and sat down to wait.

A quarter of an hour passed before she heard a faint splash in the water below. She leaned out of the window and stared down into the darkness, to see nothing but vague outlines and an uncertain glimmering of water. Then something moved, close to the wall. A whisper came up to her out of the darkness.

"Nance——"

She leaned out and curved her hands about her mouth as though to confine her voice and throw it down to the man below.

"Who is it?"

"Jeremy."

She shivered with excitement.

"Oh, I'm glad, so glad."

"Not too fast, child. Where is Jasper? Do you know anything?"

"They have him in irons in one of the attics."

"Irons! Damn them!"

"I am locked into my room and father into his. A man seems to sleep in the same attic as Jasper."

Jeremy was silent a moment.

"Cunning rogues. Ssh! Nance, could you let down a cord or anything, a couple of sheets tied together?"

"Are you coming in?"

"No, no, not this time. Listen. Do you know what opium is?"

"Yes."

"Then let down a line. Here's a packet of poppy-powder."

Nance went to the bed, stripped the sheets off, tied them together, and let the rope out of the window. The lower end dangled itself in the water of the cistern.

"Jerk it to one side——"

She tried several times before Jeremy managed to catch the wet sheet on the end of a stick. He fastened the packet to the dry part of the sheet.

"Right, Nance. Do you think you can manage to get this stuff into the wine—De Rothan's wine?"

"I'll try. Would it kill him?"

"No, there's not enough for that. If we could get him drugged, we could deal with the others. Try the trick to-morrow evening. We shall be on the watch in the wood. If you succeed, signal with your candle."

Nance had pulled up the sheets, and had the packet in her hands.

"Is there no other way, Jeremy?"

"We will try this. Are you afraid?"

"Yes—and no. No—not for Jasper's sake."

"Good. No more risks to-night. And, Nance?"

"Yes."

"If anything bad should happen, call, shout, someone will be within hearing. We should break in and chance the rest. See?"

"Yes."

"Good night, child."

"Good night, Jeremy, good night."

XXXV

Parson Goffin came cantering up to Rush Heath House, his face radiant, his nag's coat shining with sweat. The parson's face glowed, and he was in magnificent good humour. Bumpers of exultation, and of far stronger drink, had been tossed down the throats of many Sussex worthies that morning. The powder on his coat and waistcoat showed that Mr. Goffin had been taking snuff with feverish exhilaration.

He pulled up in front of the house, waving his hat, and shouting.

"Hallo, there, Squire—Jeremy—three cheers for old England."

Squire Kit was asleep, but Jeremy came out like a boy out of school.

"Hallo, hallo, what news?"

"Villeneuve has been caught and plucked. Hoorah, sir, hoorah, no damned French fleet in the Channel."

"By George, Goffin!"

"The news had just come into Rye. I was in Hastings early, but, good Lord, one never hears anything but old women's gossip in Hastings! Calder fell in with Villeneuve off Ferrol. He had fifteen ships to twenty, but he went in and hammered at him. No great victory, sir, but he has kept Villeneuve from Brest and from the Channel."

Jeremy snapped his fingers.

"Sing old Rose, and burn the bellows! Good, by George—for England."

"Villeneuve got away into Ferrol, but he's there, sir, and not off Boulogne. And some of them are cursing Calder for not doing better. Why, damn 'em, he has stopped the Frenchman's rush. It's all up with him for a dash on the Straits of Dover. And I'll wager that Nelson is not very far from the coast of Spain."

He blew, perspired, and exulted.

"A drink, Jeremy, my man, my pulpit for a drink. Here's to old England!"

"Pots will have a busy day. Hi, Jack, Sue, Marjorie, here—all of you—run, now, fill up the brown jugs. The French have had one on the nose, and are stopping to think it over! Run, you beggars, kisses all round for the wenches. Toss the brown ale down and be merry."

Jeremy took the news and a jug of ale to Squire Christopher.

"Villeneuve has been headed out of the Channel, sir."

"Murder my soul, Jerry, news—that's news. Let all the apothecaries go to blazes. Give me a drink, man; the jug will do. Here's to the roast beef. We'll soon have lad Jasper home, eh?"

Jeremy kept a stolid face.

"Count on that, Kit; we'll soon have the lad home."

But he went down to join Goffin, with a grim mouth and thoughtful eyes.

"This is good for the country, Goffin, but over yonder it may mean something dangerous. And here is Kit calling out for the lad——"

Goffin emptied his mug for the third time.

"The game is up for the scoundrel. He knows it by now."

"Yes. He hears things quickly enough, but you don't know this sort of man, Goffin. You have never come across the breed. I have. A bit of Irish and a bit of French, and a kind of pleasant cynical villainy thrown in. He is the stage rogue off the stage—to the last insolent cock of the rapier. Yet he's no mere actor man in a black doublet and a plumed hat. He'd pistol you before you could say pat, if it were worth his while to do it."

"The linen sounds too dirty, Jeremy! He will make off across the water."

"Yes, and take the girl with him. And perhaps stick a knife into Jasper before he goes."

"Poof, sir, you make the man a monster. I'll not believe it. Your adventures in Spain——"

Jeremy smiled a rather hard smile.

"Good sir, tell me, I have seen the savage, and the passionate side of life—I have. Blood and steel! Good Lord, Goffin; these things are real; they aren't bits of wood and cups of cheap wine. Men lust, and stab, and shoot. They do; I assure you. I suppose it has been so peaceful over the water——"

Goffin grunted.

"Well, what are we wasting precious time for, sir?"

"Ask the impossible monster! I am not going to waste time. I am going to get our men together and draw a leaguer about De Rothan's place. We shall use craft if we can. It will be safer for the girl and for Jasper."

Jeremy was in the saddle before the day was half an hour older. He knew that the news of Villeneuve's defeat would be serious news to De Rothan, and that it would go far toward making him a desperate man. The climax that he had schemed and waited for had vanished. There might still be a vague chance of Villeneuve sailing out of Ferrol and trying to fight his way into the Channel, but Jeremy, unlike the scaremongers, was well content with things as they were. Villeneuve had not shown himself to be the man for a great enterprise. The haunting and inexorable genius of Nelson dogged him, casting a premonition of disaster over the Frenchman's mind.

Jeremy rode out to gather in Jasper's friends. He called up John Steyning, of Catsfield, and young Parsloe, of the "Black Horse," and told each of them to bring two or three sturdy men. The meeting-place was to be the "Queen's Head" Inn at Sedlescombe. They were to gather there unostentatiously, as though it were a matter of chance. Jeremy himself rode on to Hastings. He had an old friend quartered there as surgeon to the troops, Surgeon Stott, a one-eyed, bronze-headed vulture of a man, fierce of beak and skinny of neck, and with language enough to satisfy Satan. But Stott was a shrewd and steady surgeon with a quick hand and a cool head. He could keep his mouth shut, and bring down a partridge with a pistol-bullet.

Stott was an oddity, and Jeremy found him in a little back room of one of the Hastings inns, brewing a bowl of punch. He was tasting the stuff, with the ladle under his hooked nose, when Jeremy entered.

"What, Jeremy—you devil!"

"Punch at this time of day! Empty it out of the window, sir. I am taking you out on an adventure."

"A fight, eh? I'm game. Instruments or pistols, or both? By George, sir, I feel in a mood to cut off ten legs in as many minutes."

Jeremy sat down and told him the whole tale.

"So it is not a matter of leg-cutting, Stott."

"No, a quick shot with a pistol, and no pomposity, eh! Shoot the rogue first, and explain afterward."

"We've got to be careful, Stott. He is as touchy on the trigger as you are. Have you got a horse of your own?"

"Yes."

"Then come along. We can talk on the road."

By four o'clock Jeremy's party had gathered at the Sedlescombe inn. Jeremy's opinion of the landlord proved sage and astute. The man did not even look inquisitive. He had a private room at the gentlemen's service, and never blinked an eyelid when seven or eight sturdy yokels who were strangers in the village came scraping their hobnails in his brick-paved parlour. Parson Goffin turned up with pistols in his coat-tail pockets, and ready to drink and hobnob with Steyning, young Parsloe, Jeremy, and Surgeon Stott. Tom Stook and David Barfoot with three or four steady men were lying in the woods and ditches about the Brick House, keeping watch.

Jeremy and his friends played bowls on the "Queen's Head" green, and dined together in the private room, the landlord waiting on them in person. Over their long pipes Jeremy elaborated his plan of campaign. They were to surround De Rothan's house that night on the chance that Nance Durrell might be able to set the spell working within. This scheme failing them, Jeremy proposed that they should break into De Rothan's stables, make off with his horse-flesh, and see whether some such argument could not bring him to reason.

Jeremy had pictured De Rothan as a desperate man, and if there is anything in the saying that a man's temper can give him a black face, then De Rothan was in some such desperate temper. He had ridden out very early in the direction of Guestling and the sea, and Tom Stook, lying in a dry ditch and peering through the hedge-bottom, saw him return. His horse shied where the grass lane turned in from the by-road, and something ominous about the incident seemed to set a spark to De Rothan's black anger. He beat the horse about the head with his fist, and then sawed at the bit till the beast's mouth bled.

Stook was no lamb, but De Rothan's savagery angered him.

"You tarrifyin' devil! Someone may be giving you a bloody mouth before long."

The first person whom De Rothan spoke with at the Brick House was the man Gaston. François had taken Gaston's place for an hour, and the elder man was stretching his legs in the garden. He knew the various expressions of De Rothan's face as well as a shepherd knows the face of the sky. There was thunder about, and the horizon looked ominous.

De Rothan's horse was still quivering with fright. Gaston took the bridle, and waited stolidly for orders.

"Thunder, don't stare at me, man, like that! This morning I have heard the name of a coward. Villeneuve has wrecked us, if he has been careful of his fleet."

"Villeneuve, monsieur!"

"The heart of a chicken! That the Emperor should have trusted such a man! I heard the news at Rye. Maybe you have heard bells ringing. One night more here, and then for France."

Gaston was about to lead the horse round to the stable, but De Rothan stopped him.

"No, no, I know these yokels are on the watch. If they were to break into the stable and snap up our horses we should be badly placed. The hall can serve as a stable to-night. Have a few staples knocked into the wainscoting and bring all the beasts in. Men and horses all under one roof."

Gaston nodded.

"What of the young man, monsieur?"

"We will use him till the last moment, and he will be useful, even then. Come here, Gaston. Some things must be spoken quietly."

They stood close together, Gaston intent and swarthy, stolidly ready to follow the adventure through. Once or twice he blinked his eyes at De Rothan as though astonished.

"Madame goes with us, monsieur?"

"I have said as much."

"And the young man, monsieur! Are we to leave him chained up like an ox in a stall?"

"Growing soft at heart, Gaston? I have no pity for people who get in my way. Besides, the trick will keep his good friends busy, and we shall have to snatch our time. I agreed with Martin this very morning. It will be high water at midnight to-morrow. He will run close in at Pett Level and take us off."

"Then I will see to the horses, monsieur."

"Yes, now, at once. Then we will dine. I will go and warn Miss Durrell and her father."

Nance was sitting at her window when she heard De Rothan's footsteps in the gallery. The sound stirred the secret purpose of her suspense. All day she had been thinking over Jeremy's plan, and it seemed so impossible, so much like a trick out of an old play.

De Rothan knocked at her door.

"Nance, we dine in an hour."

"Yes."

"I will be here at your door to give you an arm."

She heard him go on to her father's room and knock. Their voices sounded harsh and quarrelsome. For comfort she gazed out toward the oak wood on the slope of the hill where Jeremy's watchers were hidden. She was almost angry with Jeremy for putting such a weapon into her hands. What chance had she to use it, and why did they thrust the responsibility upon a woman?

She heard De Rothan repass her door. He was humming that song that the royalists had sung so gallantly and so fatefully at Versailles: "O, Richard, O mon roi, si l'univers t'abandon——"

A feeling of helplessness possessed her. She rested her forehead on her crossed wrists and tried to think of something she could do.

XXXVI

Nance heard the sound of hammering below, and it connected itself in her mind with some vague idea that the house was being barricaded against attack. She was still leaning her crossed arms on the window-sill when she heard De Rothan's knock.

She went out to him with Jeremy's packet hidden under her bodice. She had torn off the sealed end and just folded the paper over so that the powder could be emptied out quickly.

There was a gaiety about De Rothan that baffled her. It was not unlike the insolent sprightliness of an aristocrat passing to the guillotine.

"Your father refuses to dine with us to-night."

"He is not ill?"

"Only in temper. You will not grudge me a little kindness."

"No. Besides, I am hungry."

He laughed, and offered her his arm.

"Let us be honest. Even heroines have to eat and drink and wash their faces. It is monstrous nonsense, all this romance and all this glorifying of women. A boy adores indiscriminately, a man chooses the least offensive necessity. That is the difference between a boy's love and a man's."

As they descended the oak stairway, François came in from the porch with a horse following at the end of a halter. The beast followed him quietly enough, though its hoofs made a rare racket on the oak floor-boards of the hall. The unexpectedness of it made Nance falter.

"Nothing but a horse, ma chère."

"It startled me."

"You tremble. You are not made to be an adventurous heroine, to do wonderful and absurd things, climb down ropes, and hold villains at the point of a pistol. We are asking our horses to dine with us, that is all. Now, tell me frankly, how do you like adventure?"

"I don't like it at all."

"No, of course not. It is abominably uncomfortable, but people will have it that it is fine and exciting—to read about."

The man Jean waited on them at table, while François went in and out of the big hall bringing the horses in from the stable and fastening them to the staples that had been driven into the wainscoting. Nance's place was at the lower end of the oak table, where the light from the window fell upon her face. De Rothan sat well back in his chair, watching her and keeping up a whimsical monologue.

"Why the old chivalry folk glorified you women, Nance, I do not know. I have had experience, and I have never come across a woman who was not a fool. Wonderful creatures, eh—all cream and roses and starry eyes and tenderness and purity! Just because of something that is called a petticoat. And Mr. Benham thinks you the most wonderful young woman in the whole world! Now, I do not. And since a man cannot get on without a woman, he makes the best of a bad bargain."

She felt that he was laughing at her, and yet there was something vindictive and passionate behind it.

"You are too clever for me, Chevalier."

"No doubt I am. We have nothing to do with a woman's brains—God help them. But we are not all brain. That is the tragedy."

She met his eyes and hated them for their sudden animal frankness. It was probable that for the moment this rather sentimental girl understood De Rothan and the type of manhood that he represented, a manhood that could be passionate and unscrupulous, and yet could despise itself for being passionate. "To fret oneself about this schoolgirl!"—that was what he was saying to himself.

Nance shrank into herself, and thought of Jasper, without realising that De Rothan was in many ways the finer man. He was a well-polished rogue, and had done, many clever things in his time. Jasper Benham would be remarkable mainly as the father of a family. But Nance's thoughts did not run in this direction.

Jean had been dismissed by De Rothan. He reappeared at the door and said something in French. De Rothan pushed his chair back and rose.

"Miss Nance, you will pardon me?"

She felt her face crimsoning as she saw her opportunity rushing upon her.

"Yes."

He went out, closing the door after him. Nance was up and unfolding the packet with shaking and ineffectual fingers. De Rothan's silver tankard was half full. She slipped round the table and emptied the powder into it, and, crumpling up the paper, thrust it back into the bosom of her dress.

She was shaking like an old lady with the palsy, and trying desperately to hide it, when De Rothan returned. He came in with a casual air, humming the same song as he had hummed in the gallery. He gave one sharp sidelong glance at Nance, and smiled.

"You will pardon my turning the hall into a stable, but circumstances are urgent. François needed orders. I trust the opportunity was of use."

His ironical air chilled her. She saw him resume his seat, take the tankard, look into it, sip a little of the drink, and then lean back in the chair and laugh.

"Nance, ma chère, you have not pledged me yet. Let me pass you a loving cup."

She sat and stared at him helplessly, feeling herself a fool.

"What, you will not drink to me? Supposing we send the cup to Mr. Benham? I will put more liquor in it, for no doubt he is thirsty. Jean, man, Jean. Here."

Jean came in and stood beside Nance's chair. But De Rothan did not look at him. His eyes were fixed upon Nance.

"Jean, I thought I wanted you, but I find I do not. Go and help François with the horses."

The man vanished, and De Rothan sat with one hand holding the handle of the tankard, his eyes still fixed on Nance. She felt humiliated, outwitted, stripped naked before him. It was so palpable that he knew and that the knowledge amused him.

"Nance, you cannot play the part, my child. We are too clever for the sweet Tragedy Queen who tilts little packets of poison into a gentleman's cup. Did that shiny-faced bully of a fencing-master take me for such a fool!"

She had nothing to say to him.

"Whisperings at midnight under a lady's window! Some houses carry sounds very queerly, child, and men who value their necks do not run too many risks. Oh, I do not blame you. Husbands are poisoned more often than lovers, and yet I am inclined to tempt the peril."

He rose and emptied the tankard out of the window.

"No doubt you would like to think over the possibilities of this little affair? Sleep well to-night. You may need it. Do not waste the precious horns making little signals with candles."

He moved across and opened the door for her. Nance had risen. Resentment, and half-childish anger had taken the place of her sense of blundering helplessness.

"I hate you," her eyes told him.

And he laughed.

"François, see that the horses behave properly. Miss Durrell goes to her room."

Nance felt bitterly befooled, and not so much in love with Jeremy's cleverness. De Rothan's sneering complacency made her horribly afraid. Supposing he should win through, outwit Jeremy, and get away to France? And supposing, too, that he intended taking her with him? The whole thing was preposterous and yet abominably real. She watched the dusk falling, brooding at her window, while the woods blackened against the summer sunset. She supposed that Jeremy and his friends were hidden yonder in the woods. They would be watching the house for her signal, a signal that she could not give.

Nance did not sleep that night, which was hardly to be wondered at. The house was full of noises, the stamping of the horses on the oak floor of the hall, the passing to and fro of men, the noise of hammering in some distant room. De Rothan was preparing his baggage for a sudden retreat, packing such valuables as he possessed, and ordering his men to break everything that had to be left behind. Jean was sent round with a hatchet, and was smashing chairs to pieces, hammering in the cases of the clocks, and splitting the panels of chests and cupboards.

Then, some time after midnight, Nance heard someone talking in the orchard beyond the stables. There was a sound as of men running, a scuffling of feet on the stones of the yard, a shattering of glass, and the splitting of wood. Then someone exclaimed angrily, and shadows shuffled away disappointedly into the darkness. Nance heard De Rothan speaking from one of the upper windows.

"There is nothing to be stolen there, gentlemen. I disposed of my horses this morning. We happen to be awake here, so I should advise you to go away quietly."

Under an apple-tree in the orchard Jeremy was swearing into the sympathetic ears of Surgeon Stott.

"Confound the fellow, it is like grabbing an eel. He has taken his horses inside the house. I know what that means. He is going to make a bolt for the sea."

Parson Goffin appeared, a long black shadow among the apple-trees. He was taking snuff, and was ripe for a luxurious and irrepressible explosion.

"Ha—tissho—ha—t——"

"Damn you, Goffin, you are a nice man for a night surprise!"

"It was not much of a surprise, sir. I can sneeze with impunity. Ha tisshoo—ha tissho."

Jeremy swore. It was getting ridiculous.

"Look here, Stott, we shall have to bivouac here—blockade the place."

"That's the game, sir."

"I'll send Parsloe back for provisions, and then on to the coast to try and warn the sailor people to look out for suspicious visitors. We will sit down here, and trumpet with our noses, parson, and hope for the walls of Jericho to fall."

When daylight came those in the Brick House saw Jeremy's people bivouacking in the orchard and in the meadow in front of the house. Jeremy had divided his party into two bodies so as to command both sides of the place. Nance, standing at her window, saw Jeremy walking up and down the orchard, his hat cocked at a militant angle, and a short clay pipe between his teeth. He stopped and waved his hat to her, when she appeared at the window, and Nance waved back. There was something comforting about Jeremy's activity and about the men whom she could see sitting with their backs against the trunks of the apple-trees with muskets or old shot-guns ready across their knees. Hardly one of the yokels could shoot, but still they looked impressive.

The Brick House itself seemed very quiet and undisturbed. About eight o'clock Nance heard footsteps on the stairs, and a tray was set down outside her door. She opened the door when she thought the man had gone, only to find De Rothan standing close by in the gallery, and looking through a window at Jeremy's men in the meadow. Surgeon Stott had command there. They had lit a fire, and the blue-grey smoke went up into the sunlight.

De Rothan turned and smiled at Nance.

"These good people are very attentive. Yes, take your tray, ma chère, we still have some tea-cups left us."

He appeared audaciously cheerful, as though enjoying this essay in strategy.

"Mr. Benham has been asking for you, but I thought that it would not be kind to leave his wounds too raw. The end of his imprisonment is very near. I hope to return him soon to his friends."

Nance faltered in the doorway, yearning to know what De Rothan was hiding behind this mask of composure.

"Then you will let us go back to our friends?" He eyed her curiously.

"Mr. Benham will return home. Your father can please himself. As for you, ma chère, in your case you will please the Chevalier de Rothan."

"You cannot mean——"

"I desire you to go with me to France. It is a fair country and will please you."

She made as though to close the door on him, run to the window, and shout to Jeremy. A gesture of De Rothan's restrained her.

"No, child, do not run and call to your friends. I assure you that it would be fatal to Mr. Benham; nor would it help you in the least."

"But, it is impossible! You cannot take me against my will!"

He made a soothing movement with his hands.

"Tsst, child, do not excite yourself. I am doing you a great honour. In France you will no longer be the daughter of an old schoolmaster. There, take up your tray and get your breakfast. One should not go into action hungry."

XXXVII

Most of that day Nance sat at her window overlooking the orchard. Once or twice she waved to Jeremy and he waved back to her, but Nance had conceived such a deadly dread of De Rothan that she was afraid to bestir herself in her own cause. It seemed to be Jasper's life against her own honour, for there was something about De Rothan's sneering cheerfulness that made her believe that he would not hesitate to carry out his threats.

But Nance did not go untempted, seeing that Jeremy and his men were within hail, and that one appealing cry from her would bring the whole crisis to an end. They would storm the house, and overwhelm De Rothan and his Frenchmen. But then, in the meantime, what would have befallen Jasper, with that sullen beast of a Gaston on guard over him in the attic?

Nance understood what Jeremy's tactics were. He was showing De Rothan with ostentation—that he was surrounded, and was waiting for the Frenchman to come to terms. And Jeremy's strategy reacted upon Nance. She had worn herself into a fever of emotional anguish, but her own helplessness made itself felt. She would leave things to these men, let herself drift. All, all—was it not impossible for De Rothan to break away and reach the sea?

As for De Rothan, he was not the proper villain who stalked the passages, biting his nails, and muttering love and vengeance. He looked plump, sprightly, dressed to perfection, and very much unflurried. These wasps buzzing in the orchard seemed to amuse him. He even went into the garden and walked magnificently up and down the brick path, stopping at the gate to lift his hat to Surgeon Stott who was busy with a glass and bottle.

The surgeon approached the gate, thinking De Rothan had come out to parley.

"Is it the white flag, sir?"

"Good morning, sir. I hope you like my meadow? No, I am taking the air—that is all."

"Impudent blackguard!" said the surgeon.

But De Rothan did not seem to hear.

About eleven o'clock that morning he went up to see Jasper Benham, who had been growing more and more exasperated each day over his own squalid helplessness. Bad food and an abundance of physical discomfort soon take the romance out of life, especially when there is no one to applaud a man's fortitude. But Jasper had an abnormal amount of obstinacy. He hung on to his ideals, when many men would have wished De Rothan, old Durrell, and his daughter at Jericho.

"Good morning to you, Mr. Benham. It may please you to know that you will be free to-morrow."

Jasper eyed him with grim hostility. De Rothan's good humour and his shining self-satisfaction were not soothing.

"Thanks. But on what terms?"

"Terms, Mr. Benham?"

"You are not the man to surrender something for nothing."

"Eh! But I have all that I desire. You see, I leave you here, looking your best and feeling proud of all that you have accomplished. I make my departure with such valuables as I have by me. I take Miss Durrell with me into France to be my mistress."

If Jasper's manhood needed reinspiring it found its inspiration in these words of De Rothan's. A moment ago he had felt glad that the adventure was at an end, that he would be able to stretch his legs, wash, drink a glass of good wine, and eat a well-cooked dinner. The smell of liberty had entered his nostrils. But here De Rothan had roused a deeper and more powerful instinct, stronger physically even than thirst, hunger, and the desire to be clean.

"You scoundrel!"

De Rothan looked at him quizzically.

"Mr. Benham, you have a good opinion of yourself. Does it not occur to you that a woman may change her mind?"

"No."

"That is strange! How little you must know of women. Consider for a moment. I am a very passable man, taller by half a hand than you are, better built, not so thick in the skull. I am an aristocrat, a wit, and a man who has travelled. Women love a man with a little of the devil in him; it is human nature. I could kill you in half a minute if we were put up to fight with swords. Nance knows that. And it counts with a woman."

"What a liar you are!"

"No; I am telling the truth because—my little man—it will sting you far more than if I laid my hand across your face. I depart for France. Nance has chosen to come with me. It is not very wonderful that she should prefer a French aristocrat and a man of the world to a little red-faced Sussex squireling who has lived his life in three parishes. Why should I laugh at you? It is not worth it."

"Still, you are a liar."

"Wait till to-morrow and judge by the facts. You will have that charming old gentleman Mr. Durrell to comfort you. Embrace him, and try to imagine that he is his daughter."

Jasper had gathered himself for a great effort. Every muscle and sinew raged in him. He drew in his breath, and gave one wrench at the irons that held him. But even if he had been fit and strong he could not have broken them. The iron wristlets bit into the flesh.

He lay back against the wall, balked and humiliated, weighed down by his own impotent wrath.

"This is not the end."

De Rothan moved backward toward the door.

"Do not excite yourself. You will be free in a few hours."

Jasper watched him as a chained dog watches a man who has struck him brutally with a stick. He knew that his own fury was pleasant to De Rothan.

"You accursed coward!"

"Ah, Mr. Benham; you may need your own courage presently."

Little did Jasper guess that Jeremy and Surgeon Stott were walking up and down the meadow within a hundred paces of the house. The surgeon kept a shrewd eye cocked on the windows. He moistened his lips with a dry tongue, and leered knowingly at his own thoughts.

"He will either have to bolt, Jerry, or we shall starve him out. The fellow is trying what insolence will do. I'll wager that he'll come out hat in hand before long."

Jeremy was not so sanguine.

"It is not all wind, Stott. There's pith in the chap. I wish I knew his game."

"Sit tight—that's ours. Rummy affair, Jeremy, some twenty Englishmen blockading Frenchmen in an English house! We must keep two men on the watch all night, with one of us to go the rounds."

And Jeremy agreed.

There was a full moon that night, and Nance, sitting at her window, knew that the moon had risen by the huge black shadow of the house that covered the yard and stables and spread across the orchard. She was vividly awake, alert, overstrung, ready for anything to happen. As the moon climbed higher the shadow of the house shortened, and she could see the orchard and the figure of a man going to and fro among the trees. The moonlight glinted on a musket barrel, and made his face look a grey patch when he turned at each end of his beat.

Brick House had been restless. There had been a stamping of feet in the attics overhead, and a rending sound as though men were splitting the woodwork with hatchets. But for an hour absolute silence had held, and the sentry out yonder might have thought the place asleep.

Nance was wondering whether she would have to watch all night. Her eyes ached with weariness rather than with the desire for sleep. The black boughs and foliage of the orchard trees swam into strange fantastic shapes under the moon.

It was then that she heard a vague stirring in the rooms below. Someone ran upstairs with a light patter of bare feet. In the hall voices spoke in undertones, making a vague murmuring.

Nance heard footsteps in the gallery. They stopped outside her door. Intuition warned her that it was De Rothan.

"Nance, I have good news for you."

She faltered by the window, keeping silence out of a feeling of mistrust.

"Nance, are you asleep? Come, I have good news."

She rose and crossed the room.

"What is it—what do you want?"

"Nance, I see that the game is up. They will starve us into surrender. I am going to send you out to make terms for me."

She thrilled.

"Me? To Jeremy?"

"Yes. We cannot get away from here, but still—I have my prisoner up above. I want you to be magnanimous—to try to get me terms."

The little oak chest stood against the door. Nance pushed it aside, trembling with the rush of her belief in the loosening of the net about her. When she opened the door she saw De Rothan standing in the gallery. The windows threw moonlit patches upon the floor.

"You see how hopeless it is for me."

He sighed.

"There are too many of them, and they have hemmed me in. I can leave the country to-night if your friends yonder will come to terms."

He spoke dejectedly as though utterly discouraged.

"You will do this for me, go out as my friend?"

"Yes."

"Come, then, let us waste no time."

He had been standing with his head bent and his hands behind him, a melancholy shadow in the long, moon-streaked gallery. Nance came out from her room, believing what she desired to believe, and that De Rothan had been driven to surrender. But before she could throw her hands up, a blanket was tossed over her head, and she felt herself smothered in it and wrapped round by De Rothan's arms. He carried her along the gallery and down the stairs, holding her so tightly that she felt like a child crushed in a crowd.

Confused movements were going on in the darkness about her. She heard harness jingling, and smelt the smell of horses.

"Quick, François! The scarf—tie it so."

Something soft was passed about her body and knotted so that she could not move her arms. She felt herself lifted on to the back of a horse and held there by two strong hands. Someone mounted behind her, and she guessed that it was De Rothan.

"Bide quiet, ma chère, and no harm will come. Gaston, are you there?"

A man came running down the stairs.

"It is done, monsieur, it is done."

Nance heard the words, and their vague, suggestive horror numbed her heart. She was like a cataleptic, unable to move or to cry out. Strange, wild things were happening, and she could not help herself. She was aware of a dull red wound in the midst of her consciousness, the thought that Jasper had been given his death.

"Open the door, man. Softly—ready? Follow me and keep close."

De Rothan's arm tightened about her. He spoke sharply as the horse moved.

"Bend low, bend low."

He forced her down, bending over her as the horse passed through the doorway into the porch. There was a clatter of hoofs, the breath of the night breeze sweeping in. Then Nance felt De Rothan straighten himself in the saddle. They were going at a walk down the brick path to the gate in the garden wall.

Then, suddenly, the horse broke into wild, cantering life. They seemed to sweep forward with a rush of wind, and a clattering of hoofs behind them. A man shouted somewhere, and was still shouting as they galloped over the meadow. A pistol cracked. Nance heard a queer sighing sound go by her and die away into the distance.

De Rothan gave a sharp, exultant cry. The horse slowed up. Nance felt De Rothan bend and swing something aside. It was the gate leading out of the meadow into the lane. Shuffling, snorting horses came crowding up behind. Then there was the burst of a fresh gallop between high black hedges that banked out the moonlight.

XXXVIII

Smoke curled from the muzzle of Surgeon Stott's empty pistol, and his mouth emptied itself of sundry emphatic curses. He shouted at Tom Stook, who was standing and staring across the meadow.

"Run, man, run! Rouse Mr. Winter."

But Jeremy had been roused a minute ago by the sentinel in the orchard, who had bent over him where he lay asleep under an apple-tree and pulled him by the arm.

"Mr. Winter, sir, Mr. Winter, the house be a' fire."

Jeremy had sprung up, to find the man pointing at the attic story of the Brick House.

The place was black under the moon, but at one gable end an attic window showed the red glow of fire. The casement frames were clearly outlined; from the open lattice came little swirls of smoke, and for a moment a black shape showed within like a man tossing his arms in despair.

Jeremy's heart leapt in him.

"Good God!"

He ran round rousing his men, calling in particular for John Jenner the Rookhurst blacksmith. They began their rush toward the house just after Stott's pistol shot barked out a grim warning. Stott, Jeremy, and their men met in the front garden, holding back for the moment as though not knowing whether they were facing enemies or friends.

"Stott?"

"It is Stott, sir. They have broken through, curse 'em."

"And the house is on fire. The devil has left Jasper to burn in his attic——"

"By George! And they have got the girl."

"We'll catch and butcher the lot of them. Jenner, Jack Jenner, have you got your tools?"

"Sure, Mr. Winter, sure."

Then things happened as De Rothan had counted on their happening. Jeremy, Stott, Steyning, and young Parsloe stormed into the house, Jeremy carrying a lantern that one of the men had brought lit from the orchard. They made no tarrying in the hall, but rushed for the stairs, Jeremy carrying visions of Jasper tied up in a burning room.

Half way up the stairs a figure came blundering down on them. It was Anthony Durrell, half dressed, and bewildered.

Jeremy held his hand.

"George, sir—I had nearly fired into you. Which is Benham's room? Do you know?"

Durrell was inarticulate.

"Mr. Winter, sir! I—I have not——"

Jeremy swore, thrust him aside, and rushed on, the rest following, leaving Durrell flattened against the wall.

The smell of the fire guided them, the pungent scent of burning wood. The stairs leading to the attic story were narrow and tortuous like the stairs in an old tower. Jeremy was the first to get a glimpse of the yellow light streaming under an attic door. The crackle of burning wood could be heard. Little puffs of smoke were drifting into the passage.

Jeremy rushed to the door of the burning room and found it locked. He charged at it with his shoulder, but it did not budge.

"Jack Jenner—at this door, man. Jasper, lad—Jasper——"

Suddenly those who were in the gallery stood listening, and looking into each other's eyes. The smith was caught in the act of raising a heavy hammer. Stott had his hand on Jeremy's shoulder.

"Hallo, Jeremy, hallo——"

It was like a ghost voice coming, not from the burning room, but down the long gallery with its dormer windows and its sloping eaves. Some of the men on the stairs looked scared, and waited to see what Jeremy would do.

"Jasper—hallo——"

"Hallo—hallo."

Jeremy gave a shout and went running down the gallery. This devil's trick of De Rothan's was not so brutal as it had seemed. It had been a ruse to trick them and to gain time, but it was a ruse that touched more than the edge of murder.

"Jasper, lad, where are you?"

"In here; the end room."

The door was locked, and Jeremy made way for Jenner the smith. The man took a run, lifted one leg, and set the sole of a heavy boot over the place where the lock should be. The door flew in as though it had been unfastened and had been caught by a gust of wind.

Jeremy's lantern showed Jasper on his straw.

Winter was on his knees, one arm over Jasper's shoulders, and shouting to the smith to get to work.

"We thought the scoundrel had roasted you, lad, for the house is on fire. Knock these bolts out of the floor, Jenner, knock 'em out—by glory. We have half our night's work to do yet."

The smith was hammering at the bolts that held the rings in the floor boards. Surgeon Stott had shut the door and was standing with his back to it. A man in Jasper Benham's condition does not yearn to be gaped at by grooms and ploughmen. In the gallery young Parsloe stood watching the door of the burning attic. He had a coil of rope over his arm so that they should have a means of escape if the fire broke through into the gallery before Jasper could be released.

"What has happened, Jeremy? Where's De Rothan?"

"Got away, lad; broken through our lines. We have been blockading the place."

"Nance——"

Jeremy's mouth hardened for action.

"That's it, lad, we have got to catch him and the girl before he gets afloat."

"She didn't go willingly, Jerry?"

"Tied up in a blanket, sir," said Stott from the door.

Jasper's impatience flared up like a fire.

"Jack Jenner, man, smash those infernal bolts out, can't you? Never mind me; I'm not afraid of a bruise or two."

"Sure, Master Benham, sure, it be t' oak as holds."

"Hit at 'em, man, hit at 'em. We can deal with the darbies afterward."

The smith managed to smash the bolts out of the oak, and Jasper was free. He tried to stand, but found himself lurching against Jeremy, weak in the knees and giddy. Jenner the smith was a man of tact. He stooped, and made "a broad back" to carry Jasper below.

"Climb up, Mr. Benham, sir."

Stott went out to clear the men down the stairs, and Jeremy hoisted Jasper on to Jack Jenner's back.

They were none too soon. The door of the attic was gaping and falling apart, and yellow flames were licking the charred wood. The gallery was full of smoke that turned to silver where the moonlight touched it. Jack Jenner, blinking his eyes, swung along like a stolid elephant, with Jasper on his back.

So they made their way out of the house and came out into the garden where Anthony Durrell was pacing up and down with long, jerky strides. He ran at Jeremy, waving his arms, and crying out like a man who had been wounded.

"Nance—my daughter. Mr. Winter, sir, I implore you——"

Jeremy soothed him.

"That's just our business, Mr. Durrell; don't waste time, sir, by shouting at the moon."

He turned to the men.

"Run, you beggars; bring the horses round from the orchard. And Tom, my man, bring my sword. It stands against the apple-tree where I was dozing. It's tally-ho, and a moonlit gallop."

Jasper was sitting on the grass with the smith at work upon the leg irons and handcuffs.

"There is a horse for me, Jeremy?"

"Do you think you are fit to ride?"

"Do you think I am going to stay behind?"

"You can't sit a horse after three weeks in irons."

"I can ride Devil Dick.".

"He's with us."

"Then I go on Devil Dick's back."

"We shall have to tie you on."

"Tie me on! Be dashed to you!"

The smith had broken the catches of the handcuffs, and Jasper's arms were free. The leg irons were a stiffer proposition.

"Leave the anklets on, Jack, and get the bar away."

"It be easier to knock off t' anklets, sir."

"Get along, then, for God's sake."

Jeremy stood and watched.

"You had better let us get along, lad," he said, gently, "time is precious."

"But, Jeremy, I've been waiting for this chance——"

"It'll be away over the water if we don't hurry. Besides, lad, you are not fit to fight it out with De Rothan."

"Look here, Jerry. I must have a shot or a thrust at him."

"And does somebody want to weep over a corpse? Be reasonable, lad. Leave the Frenchman to me."

Jasper looked savage and dejected.

"Oh, call me a baby, Jeremy, and have done with it."

"Now, lad, now, do you think the old devil don't love you? Why, I'd put a pistol into Squire Kit's fist and tell him to shoot me if I were to let you run yourself to-night on that scoundrel's sword. The spirit is willing, sir, but the flesh is weak. Hallo—here come the horses."

Jack Jenner sat back on his heels with a grunt of satisfaction.

"That be one of t' quickest jobs, Mr. Benham, sir——"

Jasper was up on the instant.

"God bless you, Jack Jenner. Jeremy, I say, Jeremy——"

"Well, lad?"

"I say, my confounded head's like a churn, going round and round. Have you got a flask on you?"

"Here, Stott, you're the man. Give the lad a dose of schnapps."

The horses were ready in the meadow, and the men ready to mount. Stott had brought out a flask from his tail pocket, and also a thick sandwich of bread and beef.

"I'm an old campaigner, Mr. Benham; set your teeth into that, man, as we go along."

In another minute they were in the saddle and riding across the meadow. Several of the men had to be left behind, but counting Steyning and young Parsloe they mustered nine riders. Each man had a brace of pistols and a hanger, while Jeremy had his long sword. He meant it to be of use that night in dealing with De Rothan.

As they paused at the gate leading to the lane, a sudden glare of light made them look back toward the house. The flames had broken through the roof, and one long tongue was waving high in the air like a great wavering sword.

The light lit up grim faces and eager eyes.

"Which way, Jeremy?"

"Pett Level. We happen to have got the other side of De Rothan's game, and bought his own man over his head."

"There'll be a boat waiting."

"There'll be no boat, or I'm a blockhead."

Jeremy gave a queer, hard laugh.

"Now, then, put 'em at it, boys. Tally-ho, tally-ho. I'm for the brush of the French fox."

And they went galloping through the moonlight.

XXXIX

De Rothan seemed to know all the lanes, paths, and by-roads as though he had been born in those parts and had played the smuggler on many a night. He cast a half circle round Westfield village, and took the road that led toward Icklesham and Guestling, riding a little ahead of his men, his right arm supporting Nance. She was still smothered up in the blanket, and unable to move her arms.

The country was fairly open, with the road climbing low hills and dropping down into valleys. The moon painted everything in a broad effect of black and greys, and showed the road as a white thread before them. De Rothan was not playing for concealment. It was a question of speed, and of a dash for the shore along Pett Level where the Rye boat would be waiting to take them on board.

When they had covered a mile or more De Rothan pulled up on the top of a hill, looked back, and listened. His men drew in and waited in silence. The night seemed still and empty of all sound, and there was no rattle of hoofs to tell of pursuit.

De Rothan turned his horse and rode on.

"How is it with you, sweet Nance?"

She would not answer him.

"Frightened and outraged, eh? Come, come, you must make allowances for the spirit of adventure. If I have to cover your beauty with a blanket, it is to keep you from making the moon jealous. I thought all the world loved a pirate, a highwayman, and a gentlemanly villain! Once on board the lugger, eh! You shall see me in a red cap and big sea boots, and with a belt full of cutlasses and pistols. Ha—ha! That is the stage cry, eh? Ha—ha! Your friends are finding some little affairs to keep them about my house."

Nance shivered, and felt a wild desire to cry out. She had come by a blind horror of the man, a horror that was quickened by her own physical helplessness. Already her heart had accused him of Jasper Benham's death, for those words of Gaston's still haunted her.

De Rothan appeared to divine her emotions.

"You are longing to ask questions, my Nance, and you feel like a fly in a web? What has become of Mr. Benham and of your good father? Well, I will try to put your mind at rest. Mr. Benham is having his irons knocked off, and is drinking a pot of beer. Your father may be scolding the moon. And Brick House is burning."

He felt her body quiver. She was overstrung with suspense, incredulity, and fear.

"Why did we set the house alight? Well, you see, sweet one, it was an excellent trick for distracting the bull. They could not leave Mr. Benham there to be burned. When they have finished yonder, we may have them after us. But then, you see, they may not know where to find us."

She wondered whether he was speaking the truth, or merely talking to reassure her. His triumphant playfulness had all the glittering hardness of a well-cut stone. It was useless to appeal to him, and there was nothing that she could do to help herself.

The minutes seemed to gallop and to keep pace with the horses. They appeared to be mounting some rising ground, and to be moving over grassland by the dull thudding of the horses' hoofs. Presently De Rothan drew in, and his men came round him, making a black blur upon the summit of a hill.

To the right rose the long black ridge that climbed up to Fairlight Down, and before them lay the sea; a tranquil, summer sea under the moon. The shore was like a dark fringe to a silver robe.

De Rothan and his men were at gaze, looking for something that should have been visible out yonder. For some moments there was silence, and Nance felt the thread of hope breaking beneath the weight of her suspense.

"Hum—we are a little early. Let us go down to the shore."

The horses were turned into a narrow, high-banked lane that descended steeply toward the flats between the high ground and the sea. Loose stones rolled and scattered under the horses' hoofs. Nance had a feeling that De Rothan's mood had changed. His arm seemed to hold her more tightly. He was grimmer, less pleased with the chances of the night.

In another minute they had reached the bottom of the hill, and loose stones gave place again to grass. They moved on for another two hundred yards or more before De Rothan reined in.

Nance felt herself lifted down from De Rothan's horse. The scarf that fastened her arms was untied, and the blanket taken away. She found herself standing on rough grassland that ended in the shingle of the beach. The place was very lonely, with masses of furze and of bramble screening the shore and covering much of the ground between the sea and the hills. The tide was making a faint splashing along the shingle banks, the broken water catching the moonlight and turning it into a thousand glimmering scales.

De Rothan was standing on a little hillock and looking out to sea. His profile was visible to Nance, hard, intent, and a little scornful. The man was anxious, but not afraid.

He turned to her with an air of cynical courtesy.

"Will it please you to walk a little way along the shore with me? I have certain things to say to you."

She was afraid of being alone with him, and De Rothan saw it.

"Come, come, I am not going to cut your throat, or be violent. Gaston, keep yourselves and your horses under cover of that furze. We shall not have long to wait. Now, Nance, I am ready."

The stretch of coarse grass divided the furze banks and the shingle, and De Rothan set off eastward along it with Nance at his side. The girl was white and on the alert. The splashing of the sea upon the shingle was full of a sinister and shivering suggestiveness.

"My Nance, you are still very young. Why are you so afraid of me and of the future that I offer you?"

The triumphant tenderness in his voice made her shudder.

"Need you ask me such questions?"

"It is all bold adventure, is it not, and am I not a man to gallop off with a girl's heart?"

"Adventure! I hate the word!"

He laughed.

"Poor Nance, after all, it does not suit the click of knitting needles. It is only pleasant in books, eh? Well, well, why not some pretty château across the water, with swans on the moat, and a fine old-time garden? You would not quarrel with such quiet, homely things."

Her very dread of him made her passionately impatient. She turned to one side and sat down on a low bank in the full light of the moon.

"I'll not answer you."

"Mr. Benham is a homely young man, eh? He smells more of the fireside and the kitchen? Whereas I am a gallant, and one of the best swordsmen in France."

She rested her elbows on her knees, and her chin on her two hands.

"What kind of man are you to treat me like this? If you had one shred of honour in you——"

"Honour? I have as much honour in me as Mr. Benham, and much more in the way of brains."

"At least I have my pride left me and my scorn for you."

"Dear Nance, do you think you will speak to me like this when we are over the water? I think not—I think not."

There was something of menace in his eyes, the exultation of fierce desire. He watched her a moment, and then began to pace up and down, throwing sharp glances at the moonlit hills and toward the sea. It was plain that a savage impatience was growing in him, and that even his insolent complacency could not save him from suspense. Now again he paused to listen, fancying he heard the sound of galloping upon the hills.

"Devil take the man! Why is he not here with the boat?"

Nance watched him narrowly as his long shadow went to and fro over the grass. A glimpse of hope had risen in her, a determination to try some last desperate trick. She strained her ears, trying to catch some sound above the moist playing of the water on the shingle. If Jeremy only knew the road they had taken. If he and Jasper could only arrive in time.

Her heart would have leapt in her could she have seen a long, lithe figure squirming away amid the furze bushes. It was the figure of a man who had crept down to reconnoitre, and who was making his way back toward the higher ground above.

Half way up the hillside there was a thicket of dwarf, wind-twisted oaks. The man made for this, keeping in the shadow of the furze bushes. He gained the thicket and disappeared into it, to be surrounded almost instantly by a crowd of eager men.

"What news, Tom?"

"They be down yonder; t' three chaps wid the horses, and Miss Durrell and the French blackguard a little way along t' shore."

There was a murmuring of voices, and the clicking of pistol locks.

"Look to your priming, men. Now, listen to me."

They had left their horses on the other side of the hill, crept over the brow under the shadow of a hedge, and taken cover in the oak thicket. Tom Stook had been sent out to reconnoitre.

Jeremy told off Steyning and Parsloe with the four men to creep down and overpower De Rothan's three French servants. He himself with Jasper, Stott, and Tom Stook took a line a little more to the east so as to strike the shore where De Rothan and Nance were waiting. Jeremy ordered Stott to lead, but took second place himself. He had to hold Jasper by the arm, and plead with him fiercely.

"Am I going to let you spoil all my plans by getting hurt at the last moment? You have the pluck, but a man who has been in irons for three weeks is not fit to face a swordsman like De Rothan. Moreover, I want the surgeon at my elbow. He is a devil with a pistol, and will keep De Rothan marked."

Jasper knew that Jeremy talked sound sense.

"It goes against the grain, Jeremy."

"I know, lad, I know. I shall love you the more for giving in to me."

They started down through the furze, Steyning, Parsloe, and their men giving them a short start, since Jeremy's party had farther to go. Tom Stook led, winding in and out among the furze bushes. Jeremy and Stott followed close on him, with Jasper in the rear. Jeremy had given him his sword to carry, having unbuckled it before their advance upon the beach.

Stook paused from time to time. The noise of the sea washing along the shingle smothered any slight sound they made in brushing through the grass or against the bushes. In five minutes they were close to the shore, and could hear De Rothan speaking.

"My Nance, it is no use your putting up your pretty hands against fate. Come now and kiss me, and let us forgive."

"Only let me be!"

They heard De Rothan's laugh, and then Nance's voice in sudden alarm.

"Look, there is a boat."

"Where?"

"Away yonder. I can see the sail."

Jeremy had risen from behind the furze, and Stott followed him. They saw that De Rothan had turned and was looking out to sea. Nance had played her poor little trick on him, and it had answered. She picked up her skirts and made a dash toward the furze.

Jeremy leapt out on to the grass, shouting.

"Run, Nance, run, into the bushes for your life."

She was still in the moonlight, though nearing the banks of shadow. De Rothan had twisted about, raised an arm, and taken aim. Jeremy's voice rang out, fiercely, warningly.

"Not at the girl, not at the girl, De Rothan!"

Then Stott's pistol cracked, and De Rothan's hat went whirling, but left him unhurt. Whether the shot startled him, or whether he drew the trigger purposely, his pistol belched flame. Nance was some thirty yards from him. She gave a curious cry, staggered on a few steps, and then fell face forward into the furze.

A man's cry echoed Nance's. Jeremy swung round and caught Jasper round the middle.

"No, no, lad! Leave him to us."

"Let go, Jeremy, damn you, let go."

"Tom Stook—quick! Take hold here."

They held Jasper between them, mastering him with some ease, for he was weak despite his wild anger against De Rothan. Stott had marched forward several paces, and was calmly covering De Rothan with his second pistol.

"I've missed ye once, ye damned coward. Stand fast, or I'll put a bullet through you."

Jeremy had left Jasper to Tom Stook after wrenching his sword out of Jasper's hand. He joined Stott, sword and pistol ready, his eyes looking grimly at De Rothan.

"See to the girl, Stott. I'll deal with this gentleman."

Stott threw his pistol down and ran toward Nance, who lay half hidden in the furze. De Rothan was standing stiff and erect like a black pillar outlined by the moon. His one pistol was empty, and he had nothing left him but his sword.

He threw his head back suddenly and shouted to his men.

"Gaston, à moi—Gaston——"

His cry came too late. Steyning, Parsloe, and their men had crept down and overpowered the three Frenchmen without their firing a shot. Their exultant shouts came with the swish of the water on the shingle.

XL

Jasper had broken away from Tom Stook, whose huge fists had sympathetically relaxed their hold. Jasper's eyes were turned, not toward Jeremy Winter and De Rothan, but toward Surgeon Stott, who was bending over Nance.

Stott, glancing round to see how matters stood, saw Jasper's white face and shining eyes.

"Keep back, Mr. Benham, keep back. I don't want any one meddling with me in my business."

He rose and made as though to force Jasper back.

"Look you, sir, you are a man of sense, and I don't want folk hanging round when I have work to do. If I want you I'll call you."