, Rene, sitting upon a ledge of the old Scarthey
wall, in the spare sunshine which this still, winter's noon shone
pearl-like through a universal mist, busy mending a net, to the tune
of a melancholy, inward whistle, heard up above the licking of the
waves all around him and the whimper of the seagulls overhead, the
beat of steady oars approaching from land side.

Starting to his feet, the little man, in vague expectation, ran to a
point of vantage from which to scan the tideway; after a few seconds'
investigation he turned tail, dashed into the ruins, up the steps, and
burst open the door of the sitting-room, calling upon his master with
a scared expression of astonishment.

Captain Jack, poring over a map, his pipe sticking rakishly out of one
side of his mouth, looked up amused at the Frenchman's evident
excitement, while Adrian, who had been busy with the uppermost row of
books upon his west wall, looked down from his ladder perch, with the
pessimist's constitutional expectation of evil growing upon his face.

"One comes in a boat," ejaculated Rene, "and I thought I ought to warn
his honour, if his honour will give himself the trouble to look out."

"It must be the devil to frighten Renny in this fashion," muttered
Captain Jack as distinctly as the clench of his teeth upon the pipe
would allow him. Sir Adrian paled a little, he began to descend his
ladder, mechanically flicking the dust from his cuffs.

"Your honour," said Rene, drawing to the window and looking out
cautiously, "I have not yet seen her, but I believe it is old
miss--the aunt of your honour and these ladies."

Captain Jack's pipe fell from his dropping jaw and was broken into
many fragments as he leaped to his feet with an elasticity of limb and
a richness of expletive which of themselves would have betrayed his
calling.

Flinging his arm across one of Adrian's shoulders he peeped across the
other out of the window, with an alarm half mocking, half genuine.

"The devil it is, friend Renny," he cried, drawing back and running
his hands with an exaggerated gesture of despair through his brown
curls; "Adrian, all is lost unless you hide me."

"My aunt here, and alone," exclaimed Adrian, retreating from the
window perturbed enough himself, "I must go down to meet her. Pray God
it is no ill news! Hurry, Renny, clear these glasses away."

"In the name of all that's sacred, clear me away first!" interposed
Captain Jack, this time with a real urge