esent circumstances, as desperate as
rats in a corner; and as they would certainly expect an attack through
his escape, and the events of the past night, it was not likely that
they would have neglected to protect the one entrance to their
stronghold.

"I say, wot are we awaiting for?" growled Tom Tully.

"Hold your noise!" said Waters; "don't you see the orsifer as leads you
thinks there's a trap?"

"Wheer? I don't see no trap. Wot sorter trap?" growled Tom Tully.

"Will yer be quiet, Tommy!" whispered the gunner. "What a chap you
are!"

"Yes, ar'n't I?" said the big sailor, taking his messmate's remark as a
compliment; and settling himself tailor-fashion upon the ground, he
waited until the reconnaissance was over.

For Hilary was scanning the front of the old house most carefully.
There was the room in which he had been imprisoned, with the window
still open, and the thin white cord swinging gently in the air. There
was Adela's room, open-windowed too, and there also was the room where
he had seen Sir Henry busy writing, with his child at his knee.

Where were they now? he asked himself, and his heart felt a sudden throb
as he thought of the possibility of their being still in the house and
in danger.

But he cast the thought away directly, feeling sure that Sir Henry, a
proscribed political offender, would not, for his own and his child's
sake, run the slightest risk of being taken.

"But suppose he trusts to me, and thinks that I care too much for them
to betray their hiding-place?"

His brow turned damp at the thought, and for a moment, as he saw in
imagination his old companion Adela looking reproachfully at him for
having sent her father to the block, he felt that at all costs he must
take the men back.

Then came reaction.

"No," he thought, "I gave Sir Henry fair warning that I must do my duty,
and that if we encountered again I should have to arrest him in the
king's name. He tried to tempt me to join his party, but I refused, and
told him I had my duty to do. He must, I am sure he must, have made his
escape, and I shall lead on my men."

He hesitated a moment, and then thought that he was come there to
capture smugglers, not political offenders, and that after all he would
find a way out of his difficulty; but colouring the next moment, he felt
that he must do his duty at all hazards; and he turned to Waters.

"I can see no trace of anything wrong, gunner," he said, "but I feel
that