XL. A Haven of Peace
XLI. The Trap
XLII. Captives
XLIII. In Panama
XLIV. The Trial
XLV. For Faith and Country!
XLVI. The Galley Slaves
XLVII. Hernando speaks
XLVIII. The Revolt of the Slaves
XLIX. Eastward Ho!
L. Home
LI. The Forest again--and the Sea

List of Illustrations

Cover art

Dolly stood near the fire, her face rosy with the heat . . _Frontispiece_

The odds were hopelessly against him.

SEA-DOGS ALL!

Chapter I.

THE MAN IN BLACK.

The river-path along the Severn shore at Gatcombe was almost knee-deep
with turbid water, and only a post here and there showed where river
ordinarily ended and firm land began. Fishers and foresters stood in
the pelting rain and buffeting wind anxiously calculating what havoc
the sudden summer storm might work, helpless themselves to put forth a
hand to save anything from its fury. Stout doors and firm casements
(both were needed in the river-side hamlet) bent with the fury of the
sou'-wester that beat upon them. The tide roared up the narrowing
estuary like a mill-race, and the gale tore off the tops of the waves,
raised them with the lashing raindrops, and hurled both furiously
against everything that fringed the shore. Gatcombe Pill leapt and
plunged muddily between its high, red banks, and the yellow tide surged
up the opening and held back the seething waters like a dam. There was
black sky above, and many-coloured earth and water below.

The lading jetty against the village only appeared at odd moments above
the tumult of waters, and a couple of timber ships that lay on the
north side, partially loaded, were plunging and leaping at their anchor
cables like two dogs at the end of their chains. Great oaken logs
bobbed up and down like corks, or raced with the current upstream; the
product of many weeks' timber-cutting in the forest would be scattered
as driftwood from Gloucester to the shores of Devon and Wales.

On the high bank above Gatcombe, one other man, half hidden by the
thick trees, braved the fury of the storm. There was nothing of the
fisher or forester about him; the pale, worn face and the tall, lean
figure soberly clad in black betokened the monk or the scholar, but
claimed no kinship with them that toiled in the woodlands or won a
living from the dangerous sea. Leaning against a giant beech that
rocked in wild rhythm with the storm, he watched the wind and tide at
t