ft all you ship's company and don't make no noise," growled
Caudel.

I looked up; the figure of the _douanier_ had vanished. The three men
and the boy came sneaking out of the yacht's head.

"Now, what ye've got to do," said Caudel, "is to keep awake. You'll
see all ready for hoisting and gitting away the hinstant Mr. Barclay
and me arrives aboard. You onderstand that?"

"It's good English, cap'n," said one of the sailors.

"No skylarking, mind. You're a listening, Bobby?"

"Ay, sir."

"You'll just go quietly to work and see all clear, and then tarn to and
loaf about in the shadows. Now, Mr. Barclay, sir, if you're ready, I
am."

"Have you the little bull's-eye in your pocket?" said I.

He felt and answered, "Yes."

"Matches?"

"Two boxes."

"Stop a minute," said I, and I descended into the cabin to read my
darling's letter for the last time, that I might make sure of all
details of our romantic plot, ere embarking on as hare-brained an
adventure as was ever attempted by a lover and his sweetheart.

The cabin lamp burned brightly. I see the little interior now and
myself standing upright under the skylight, which found me room for my
stature, for I was six feet high. The night-shadow came black against
the glass, and made a mirror of each pane. My heart was beating fast,
and my hands trembled as I held my sweetheart's letter to the light. I
had read it twenty times before--you might have known that by the
creases in it and the frayed edges, as though, forsooth, it had been a
love-letter fifty years old--but my nervous excitement obliged me to go
through it once more for the last time, as I have said, to make sure.

The handwriting was girlish--how could it be otherwise, seeing that the
sweet writer was not yet eighteen? The letter consisted of four
sheets, and on one of them was very cleverly drawn, in pen and ink, a
tall, long, narrow, old-fashioned chateau, with some shrubbery in front
of it, a short length of wall, then a tall hedge with an arrow pointing
at it, under which was written, "HERE IS THE HOLE." Under another
arrow indicating a big, square door to the right of the house, where a
second short length of wall was sketched in, were written the words,
"HERE IS THE DOG." Other arrows--quite a flight of them, indeed,
causing the sketch to resemble a weather-chart--pointed to windows,
doors, a little balcony, and so forth, and against them were written,
"MAM'SELLE'S ROOM," "THE GERMAN