.

IX. THE FOUR MEN AT THE "WHITE LAMB".

X. THE TRIBULATIONS OF TRISTRAM.

XI. THE GALLEY "L'HEUREUSE".

XII. WILLIAM OF ORANGE.

XIII. CAPTAIN SALT EFFECTS ONE SURPRISE AND PLANS TWO MORE.

XIV. THE GALLEYS AND THE FRIGATE.

XV. BACK AT THE BLUE PAVILIONS.

THE BLUE PAVILIONS.

CHAPTER I.

CAPTAIN JOHN AND CAPTAIN JEMMY.

At noonday, on the 11th of October, 1673, the little seaport of
Harwich, beside the mouth of the River Stour, presented a very lively
appearance. More than a hundred tall ships, newly returned from the
Dutch War, rode at anchor in the haven, their bright masts swaying in
the sunshine above the thatched and red-tiled roofs of the town.
Tarry sailors in red and grey kersey suits, red caps and flat-heeled
shoes jostled in the narrow streets and hung about St. Nicholas's
Churchyard, in front of the Admiralty House, wherein the pursers sat
before bags and small piles of money, paying off the crews.
Soldiers crowded the tavern doors--men in soiled uniforms of the
Admiral's regiment, the Buffs and the 1st Foot Guards; some with
bandaged heads and arms, and the most still yellow after their
seasickness, but all intrepidly toasting the chances of Peace and the
girls in opposite windows. Above their laughter, and along every
street or passage opening on the harbour--from Cock and Pye Quay,
from Lambard's stairs, the Castleport, and half a dozen other
landing-stages--came wafted the shouts of captains, pilots,
boatswains, caulkers, longshore men; the noise of artillery and
stores unlading; the tack-tack of mallets in the dockyard, where Sir
Anthony Deane's new ship the _Harwich_ was rising on the billyways,
and whence the blown odours of pitch and hemp and timber, mingling
with the landward breeze, drifted all day long into the townsfolk's
nostrils, and filled their very kitchens with the savour of the sea.

In the thick of these scents and sounds, and within a cool doorway,
before which the shadow of a barber's pole rested on the cobbles,
reclined Captain John Barker--a little wry-necked gentleman, with a
prodigious hump between his shoulders, and legs that dangled two
inches off the floor. His wig was being curled by an apprentice at
the back of the shop, and his natural scalp shone as bare as a
billiard-ball; but two patches of brindled grey hair stuck out from
his brow above a pair of fierce greenish eyes set about with a
complexity of wrinkles. Just now, a