"Indeed!" said the lieutenant eagerly.

"Ay, so that chap says. And there's plenty o' time, but after a bit I'd
sarve out pistols and cutlasses to the lads; you won't have to use 'em,
but it'll keep those Dutchies from showing fight."

"That will all be done, my man."

"Going to get out four or five mile, master, and then we can head round,
and get clear o' the long race and the skerries. After that I shall run
in, and we'll creep along under the land. Good deep water for
five-and-twenty miles there close under the cliff."

"Then you are making for Clayblack Bay?"

"Ah, you'll see," said the man surlily. "As long as you get to where
you can overhaul the boat when she comes in, you won't mind where it is,
Mister Orficer. There's no rocks to get on, unless you run ashore, and
'tarn't so dark as you need do that, eh?"

"I can take care of that," said the lieutenant sharply; and the cutter,
now well out in the north-east wind then blowing, leaned over, and
skimmed rapidly towards the dark sea.

The reef that stretched out from a point, and formed the race where the
tide struck against the submerged rocks, and then rushed out at right
angles to the shore, had been passed, and the cutter was steered on
again through the clear dark night, slowly drawing nearer the dark shore
line, till she was well in under the cliffs; with the result that the
speed was considerably checked, but she was able to glide along at a
short distance from the land, and without doubt invisible to any vessel
at sea.

"There," said the great rough fellow, after three hours' sailing; "we're
getting pretty close now. Bay opens just beyond that rock."

"Where I'll lie close in, and wait for her," said the lieutenant.

The man laughed softly.

"Thought I--I mean him--was to get fifty pounds, if you took the boat?"

"Yes."

"Well, you must take her. Know what would happen if you went round that
point into the bay?"

"Know what would happen?"

"I'll tell yer. Soon as you got round into the bay, some o' them ashore
would see yer. Then up would go lights somewhere yonder on the hills,
and the boat would go back."

"Of course. I ought to have known better. Wait here then?"

"Well, I should, if I wanted to take her," said the man coldly. "And I
should have both my boats ready for my men to jump in, and cut her off
as soon as she gets close in to the beach. She'll come on just as the
tide's turning, so as to have no fear of being