m to behave foolishly."

"'Sh!" Morgan's voice broke in. There was tense silence in a moment.
All eyes were staring across the river. "Row out!" cried Johnnie;
"they won't hear us in this wind."

After about a dozen full strokes the command came from the bow, "Cease
rowing and keep her steady a moment!"

Another palpitating wait; then an excited cry from more than one voice,
"There she goes!" And the _Luath_, every thread of her brown sail
taut, swept by like a greyhound, wind and wave hurrying her upstream.

Round swung the admiral's boat, up went the sail, and in a moment she
was bowling along in the wake of the foe. "Put your backs into it,
lads," cried Drake; "we must have her before she gets too far up the
river, else will the longshore rascals get warning."

The stout foresters and fishers needed no incentive; they were rowing
as well as ever Jason's Argonauts rowed, and a greater than Jason was
directing them.

The yellow waters rushed and swirled and bubbled; objects drifting up
on the tide were left hopelessly behind. But the stout little Irish
boat had got under good headway, and for a while she kept it, looming
before them a blacker patch in a black night.

Chapter XII.

SNARING A FLOCK OF NIGHT RAVENS.

At about the hour when Johnnie Morgan stepped out over his threshold to
go down to the admiral at Gatcombe, Andrew Windybank stole like a thief
from the Tower and went through by-paths towards Westbury-on-Severn, a
fishing hamlet that lay a little farther up-stream than Newnham. Not a
single man of all his servants and retainers went with him. He was
clad in helmet and cuirass, and armed with sword and poniard. Although
he walked stealthily, he walked firmly. Impelled by superstitious
fears, avarice, and desire for revenge, he had finally thrown himself
whole-heartedly into the Spanish plot. He had found it impossible to
hold out against Jerome and Basil, for, had he withstood them, they
would have killed him without mercy. Therefore, being implicated
hopelessly with them and their schemes, he determined, wisely, to use
no half-measures and thus court defeat and disaster, but to strive to
his uttermost for the success of their plans, treasonable and
dishonourable though he knew them to be. "May as well be hanged for a
royal stag as for lesser game," said Master Windybank; and as he said
it he felt his neck grow uncomfortable. He plucked at his doublet,
found it quite loose, swore