ate knowledge of the passing shipping, were
indispensable. I was preparing to follow the others down the ladder when
Rangsley touched my arm.

"I don't like your company," he said close behind my ear. "I know who
they are. There were bills out for them this morning. I'd blow them,
and take the reward, but for you and Squahre Rooksby. They're handy with
their knives, too, I fancy. You mind me, and look to yourself with them.
There's something unnatural."

His words had a certain effect upon me, and his manner perhaps more. A
thing that was "unnatural" to Jack Rangsley--the man of darkness, who
lived forever as if in the shadow of the gallows--was a thing to be
avoided. He was for me nearly as romantic a figure as Carlos himself,
but for his forbidding darkness, and he was a person of immense power.
The silent flittings of lights that I had just seen, the answering
signals from the luggers far out to sea, the enforced sleep of the
towns and countryside whilst his plans were working out at night, had
impressed me with a sense of awe. And his words sank into my spirit, and
made me afraid for my future.

We followed the others downwards into a ground-floor room that was
fitted up as a barber's shop. A rushlight was burning on a table.
Rangsley took hold of a piece of wainscotting, part of the frame of
a panel; he pulled it towards him, and, at the same moment, a glazed
show-case full of razors and brushes swung noiselessly forward with an
effect of the supernatural. A small opening, just big enough to take
a man's body, revealed itself. We passed through it and up a sort of
tunnel. The door at the other end, which was formed of panels, had a
manger and straw crib attached to it on the outside, and let us into a
horse's stall. We found ourselves in the stable of the inn.

"We don't use this passage for ourselves," Rangsley said. "Only the most
looked up to need to--the justices and such like. But gallus birds like
you and your company, it's best for us not to be seen in company with.
Follow my uncle now. Good-night."

We went into the yard, under the pillars of the town hall, across
the silent street, through a narrow passage, and down to the sea. Old
Rangsley reeled ahead of us swiftly, muttering, "Three men to be
set aboard the _Thames_... quarter past eleven. Three men to be set
aboard..." and in a few minutes we stood upon the shingle beside the
idle sea, that was nearly at the full.

CHAPTER FOUR

It was,