g irresistibly), "by getting up
immediately."

"And how are we to get away," asked my grandfather, "supposing this
insane scheme of yours to be attempted?"

"I've bribed the sentry at Francisco's place of durance," returned the
Ensign. "We shall get out of the town the instant the gates are
opened; and the boat is tied to the steps, as before, only under the
charge of a sentry whom we can easily evade. Every guarda costa in the
place was sent out last night to blockade a noted smuggler who has
taken refuge in Tangier; so, once out, we are safe from pursuit: I
found it all out after you had gone to bed."

The disposition of Major Flinders, as the reader knows, was the
reverse of enterprising--he wouldn't have given a straw to be
concerned in the finest adventure that ever happened in romance. He
paused with one stocking on, inclined, like the little woman whose
garments had been curtailed by the licentious shears of the pedlar, to
doubt his own identity, and wondering if it could be really he, John
Flinders, to whom such a proposition was broached, requiring him to
assist in invading the peace of a family. As soon as he recovered his
powers of speech, of which astonishment had for a moment deprived him,
he began earnestly to dissuade the Ensign from the enterprise; but
Owen knew his man too well, and had too much youthful vivacity of will
to allow much time for remonstrance.

"Look you, Major," said he, "I'm positive I can't live without Juana.
I'll make a bold stroke for a wife. The thing's settled--no going back
now for me; and I shall go through with it with or without you. But
you're not the man, I'm sure, to desert a fellow in extremity, at a
time, too, when the advantages of your experience and coolness are so
peculiarly needed. 'Call you that backing of your friends?'"

The compliment, or the quotation, or both, softened the Major. "'Would
it were night, Hal, and all well,'" said he, half mechanically
following the Falstaffian train of ideas Owen had artfully conjured
up, and at the same time drawing on the breeches which that astute
youth obsequiously handed to him.

It was still dark when they issued forth into the narrow and dingy
streets of Tarifa. My grandfather, totally unaccustomed to visit the
glimpses of the moon in this adventurous fashion, was full of strange
fears--heard as many imaginary suspicious noises and voices as
Bunyan's Pilgrim in the dark valley--and once or twice stopt abruptly
and g