inions. Has any one of you a better plan to offer
than that of our junior lieutenant?"

At this moment a stateroom door opened and Stukely emerged from the
smaller room. Approaching the table, he stood and looked smilingly down
upon the company assembled.

"Your pardon, fair sirs," he said, "for thrusting myself uninvited into
your counsels. The surgeon is supposed to know but little of warfare
beyond the healing of such hurts as may be received therein, but I
happened to be lying awake in my cabin when this conference began, and I
could not avoid hearing all that has passed, and I am of opinion that I
can help you. As my friend, Chichester, here has put it, the problem
which confronts you is that of securing possession of the forts without
suffering loss of men. Now, the chief danger, to my mind, arises from
the difficulty of entering the forts without attracting the attention of
the sentinels, thus causing them to raise the alarm and bring the entire
garrison about our ears. Is not that so?"

The party at the table signified that it was.

"Very good, then," resumed Stukely. "Now we can go on. Though you are
probably not aware of it, my chief delight is research, the
investigation of, among other things, the properties and action upon the
human system of the juices of herbs. Now, while we were at Barbados I
spent much time in the collection of the leaves, roots, seeds, and
fruits of several plants; and since then I have been diligently
experimenting with them, with the result that I have evolved from one of
them a liquor, one inhalation of the odour of which will plunge a man
into a state of such complete insensibility that, as I believe, a limb
might be removed from him without his feeling it or being any the wiser.
My suggestion, therefore," continued Stukely, ignoring the expressions
of wonder evoked by his statement, "is that I be permitted to go in the
boat with Chichester, taking a vial of the liquor with me, and upon our
arrival ashore I will enter the forts with him, subject the sleeping
sentinels--I humbly trust that they may be sleeping--to the stupefying
influence of the decoction, whereby they may be bound and gagged without
difficulty or the raising of an alarm which would put their fellow
soldiers on the alert; and then between us the guns can be spiked at our
leisure. The remaining details I leave to your riper judgment and
experience, gallant sirs."

"But, doctor," demanded Bascomb, "are