of all these men?"

"Quite."

"You seem to have enough. We mustn't overdo this, you understand?
It wouldn't do for the affair to--succeed."

Captain Salt smiled.

"If they carry off a vessel or two," the Earl went on, "it's no great
loss, and it will give Saint Germains the agreeable notion that
something is about to happen. They've been plaguing me again.
This time it's an urgent letter in my royal master's own hand.
He calls on me to bring over the whole army in the very first
action--the born fool! Can he really believe I love him so dearly?
Has he really persuaded himself that I've forgotten--?"

He checked himself; but for the first time that evening his face was
suffused with a hot flush. For, in fact, he was thinking of his
sister, Arabella Churchill; and John Churchill, though he had made no
scruple to profit by his sister's shame, had never forgiven it.

Captain Salt filled up the pause in his dulcet voice: "We want, my
lord, such a mutiny as, without succeeding, shall convince England of
the strong dissatisfaction felt by our forces at the favouritism
shown by his Majesty towards the Dutch."

"Salt," said his lordship, eyeing him narrowly, "you are remarkably
intelligent."

"Why, my lord, should I conceal my thoughts when they tally with my
honest hopes? I look around, and what do I see? Dutchmen filling
every lucrative post; Dutchmen crowding the House of Lords; Dutchmen
commanding our armies; Dutchmen pocketing our fattest revenues.
England is weary of it. I, as an Englishman, am weary of it.
My lord, if I dared to say it--"

"Would you mind looking out and observing if the sentry is at his
post?"

Captain Salt stepped to the door and opened it. The sentry was at
the far end of the passage, engaged in his steady tramp to and fro.

"My lord," he said, closing the door softly and returning, "let this
mutiny fail! It will serve its purpose if it brings home to the
understanding of Englishmen the iniquity of this plague of Dutchmen.
Let that feeling ripen. You will return before the winter, and by
that time you may strike boldly. Then, from your place in the House
of Lords, you can move an address--"

"Go on," murmured the Earl, as he paused for a moment.

"--An address praying that all foreigners may be dismissed from his
Majesty's service."

The Earl looked up swiftly and checked his fingers, which had been
drumming on the table.

"Decidedly you are intelligent," he said very s