se name as a man of honour you
will on no account divulge lest you bring trouble upon him. That is your
tale if there are questions."

He paused, looking hard at Blood. Blood nodded understanding and assent.
Relieved, the doctor continued:

"But there should be no questions if you go carefully to work. You
concert matters With Nuttall. You enlist him as one of your companions
and a shipwright should be a very useful member of your crew. You engage
him to discover a likely sloop whose owner is disposed to sell. Then let
your preparations all be made before the purchase is effected, so that
your escape may follow instantly upon it before the inevitable questions
come to be asked. You take me?"

So well did Blood take him that within an hour he contrived to see
Nuttall, and found the fellow as disposed to the business as Dr. Whacker
had predicted. When he left the shipwright, it was agreed that Nuttall
should seek the boat required, for which Blood would at once produce the
money.

The quest took longer than was expected by Blood, who waited impatiently
with the doctor's gold concealed about his person. But at the end of
some three weeks, Nuttall--whom he was now meeting daily--informed him
that he had found a serviceable wherry, and that its owner was disposed
to sell it for twenty-two pounds. That evening, on the beach, remote
from all eyes, Peter Blood handed that sum to his new associate, and
Nuttall went off with instructions to complete the purchase late on the
following day. He was to bring the boat to the wharf, where under cover
of night Blood and his fellow-convicts would join him and make off.

Everything was ready. In the shed, from which all the wounded men had
now been removed and which had since remained untenanted, Nuttall had
concealed the necessary stores: a hundredweight of bread, a quantity
of cheese, a cask of water and some few bottles of Canary, a compass,
quadrant, chart, half-hour glass, log and line, a tarpaulin, some
carpenter's tools, and a lantern and candles. And in the stockade, all
was likewise in readiness. Hagthorpe, Dyke, and Ogle had agreed to join
the venture, and eight others had been carefully recruited. In Pitt's
hut, which he shared with five other rebels-convict, all of whom were
to join in this bid for liberty, a ladder had been constructed in secret
during those nights of waiting. With this they were to surmount the
stockade and gain the open. The risk of detection, so that