heir work of devastation, an odd smile of satisfaction playing about
the corners of his thin lips.

"A hundred candles to St. James for this tempest!" he murmured. "If
the ships do but break loose and get aground, I will tramp Christendom
for the money to build him a church." But though the man in black
watched the river for the space of two hours longer, his hopes of utter
destruction were unrealized; the cables held, the rain ceased, the wind
abated, and the tide began to run seawards once more. Bit by bit the
jetty rose above the swirling waters. Inshore the sands of the
river-bed were uncovered, and the fishers and wharfmen swarmed along
them and on the pier, saving from the sea the logs of oak that were
within reach. For a while the man on the cliff watched them; then he
turned aside into the dripping recesses of the forest. "Comfort
thyself," he said, tapping his bosom as he walked; "the omens are good.
What water hath commenced, the fire shall finish!"

Almost upon the instant a sturdy figure broke from the bushes above
Gatcombe Pill and hurried along the cliff towards the harbour.
Deep-chested, full-throated, weather-stained, compacted of brawn and
sinew, he looked the ruddy-faced, daring sailor-man, every inch of him.
From crown to toe he was clad in homely gray; but if, on the one hand,
the ass peeps out from the borrowed lion's skin, so will royalty shine
through fustian; and the newcomer had the air of a king among men. He
hallooed to the ships, and then hastily scrambled down the cliff.

Only the groaning of the trees and rustling of the undergrowth hid the
footfalls of the man in black from the ears of the man in gray. He was
looking for him, but the time when they should meet was not yet come.

Chapter II.

THE PLOTTERS.

The morrow after the storm was windless and genial; the morning stepped
out from the east bearing the promise of a fine day; the tide was
running strongly to the sea. At Newnham the ferryman stood knee-deep
in the water washing his boat and hoping for a fare. The man in black
came down and was carried across to Arlingham. He asked many questions
concerning the tides and the sands. The water ran like a mill-race
round the Nab, and the stranger crossed himself when he entered the
boat, and again when the ferryman took him on his back to carry him
through the shallow water and the mud. He paid the penny for the
passage, and then vanished quickly into the trees that