s grey eyes skimmed it. Thoughtfully he stroked his
golden beard.

"You'll not go?" he said, between question and assertion.

"Why not? Haven't I been a daily visitor at the fort...?"

"But it'll be about the Old Wolf that he wants to see you. It gives him
a grievance at last. You know, Peter, that it is Lord Julian alone has
stood between Bishop and his hate of you. If now he can show that...."

"What if he can?" Blood interrupted carelessly. "Shall I be in greater
danger ashore than aboard, now that we've but fifty men left, and they
lukewarm rogues who would as soon serve the King as me? Jeremy, dear
lad, the Arabella's a prisoner here, bedad, 'twixt the fort there and
the fleet yonder. Don't be forgetting that."

Jeremy clenched his hands. "Why did ye let Wolverstone and the others
go?" he cried, with a touch of bitterness. "You should have seen the
danger."

"How could I in honesty have detained them? It was in the bargain.
Besides, how could their staying have helped me?" And as Pitt did not
answer him: "Ye see?" he said, and shrugged. "I'll be getting my hat and
cane and sword, and go ashore in the cock-boat. See it manned for me."

"Ye're going to deliver yourself into Bishop's hands," Pitt warned him.

"Well, well, maybe he'll not find me quite so easy to grasp as he
imagines. There's a thorn or two left on me." And with a laugh Blood
departed to his cabin.

Jeremy Pitt answered the laugh with an oath. A moment he stood
irresolute where Blood had left him. Then slowly, reluctance dragging
at his feet, he went down the companion to give the order for the
cock-boat.

"If anything should happen to you, Peter," he said, as Blood was going
over the side, "Colonel Bishop had better look to himself. These fifty
lads may be lukewarm at present, as you say, but--sink me!--they'll be
anything but lukewarm if there's a breach of faith."

"And what should be happening to me, Jeremy? Sure, now, I'll be back for
dinner, so I will."

Blood climbed down into the waiting boat. But laugh though he might, he
knew as well as Pitt that in going ashore that morning he carried
his life in his hands. Because of this, it may have been that when he
stepped on to the narrow mole, in the shadow of the shallow outer wall
of the fort through whose crenels were thrust the black noses of its
heavy guns, he gave order that the boat should stay for him at that
spot. He realized that he might have to retreat in a hurry.

Walking