'
burden, built something like an ordinary fishing-boat, but longer and
lower, and was, in fact, used for fishing when her crew were not
engaged upon other adventures. She was a remarkably fast craft, and
had more than once showed her heels with success when chased by the
revenue cutters. She owed her immunity from capture, however, chiefly
to her appearance, as from her size and build she generally passed
unsuspected as an innocent fisherman.

The storm increased in violence, and the little lugger, although a
good sea-boat, had difficulty in making her way almost in the teeth of
the gale. She was bound, Harry gained from a word or two dropped by
the captain, for the mouth of the Loire, off which she was to be met
by the _Chasse Maree_. Long before morning the coast of England was
out of sight, and the lugger was struggling down Channel bravely
holding her way in the sou'westerly gale.

"Will she be zere true to her time?" the Frenchman asked the smuggler.

"Aye, she will do it," Black Jack said, "if the wind holds as at
present. Two o'clock in the morning is the time named, and if your
people are as punctual as I shall be, the five hundred pounds will be
gained. There's one thing--in such a gale as is blowing to-day none of
our cruisers who may be off the coast are likely to trouble themselves
about a boat like ours. They may wonder what we are doing at sea, but
are scarcely likely to chase us."

Once or twice in the course of the day large vessels were seen in the
distance, which Harry knew, by the cut of their sails, to be English
cruisers. All were, however, lying-to under the smallest canvas, and
Harry knew that any assistance from them was out of the question.
Towards evening the gale moderated, but the sea was still very high.
During the day Harry had turned over in his mind every possible plan
by which he might destroy the tin case which contained, as he knew,
such important documents. From what he had gathered he learned that
the success of some great undertaking upon which the British fleet
were about to embark would be marred if these papers were to find
their way into the hands of the French authorities. His own life he
regarded as absolutely forfeited, for he was sure that no sooner was
he fairly on board the French _Chasse Maree_ than he would, at the
orders of the French spy, be thrown overboard, and that his life had
been so preserved, not from any feeling of mercy, but in order that
his death might