e could invent, to account for a Spanish girl being over
here; but a ship's boy will be natural enough. If asked questions,
of course, our story will be that we had been left behind here.
There could be lots of reasons for that. Either we might have been
on shore, and the vessel gone on without us; or you might have been
sent ashore ill, and I might have been left to nurse you. That
wouldn't be a bad story.

"What we must do, when we get to the other side, must depend upon
where we land. I mean, whether we try to get straight in by boat,
or to wait about until a chance comes. Once over there, you will
have to pretend to be deaf and dumb; and then you can dress up as a
Spanish girl--of course, a peasant--which will be much more
pleasant than going about as a boy, and better in lots of ways. So
if I were you, I should take a bundle of things with me, so that we
should have nothing to buy there. It is all very well buying
disguises for myself, but I could never go into a shop to ask for
all sorts of girls' clothes."

Amy went off in a fit of laughter, at the thought of Bob having to
purchase feminine garments.

"It is all very well to laugh," Bob said. "These are the sort of
little things that are so difficult to work in. It is easy enough
to make a general plan, but the difficulty is to get everything to
fit in.

"I will have a talk with Mr. Parrot, in the morning, about the
boats. He will know what boats have been trading with the Rock, and
what men to trust."

"You can talk to him now, if you like," the girl said. "He and Mr.
Logie's other clerk have the top storey of the house."

"Oh, then I will go up and see him, at once; the sooner it is
arranged, the better. If things are in the state that everyone
says, you might all be seized and imprisoned, any day."

Bob went up at once to Mr. Parrot's rooms, and had a long talk with
him. The clerk quite agreed that anything would be better than for
a young girl to be shut up in a Moorish prison, but he did not see
how it was possible for them to find their way across to Gibraltar.

"Many of our fishermen are most courageous fellows, and have run
great risks in taking letters from Mr. Logie across to Gibraltar. I
do not suppose that the blockade is very much more strict than it
was; and indeed, the fact that you got through shows that, with
good luck, the thing is possible enough. But that is not the
difficulty. The strictest order has been issued that no boat is to