se?" he asked.

"I always carry it nowadays," was my reply.

"Well, old chap, to-night promises to be exciting."

"Why!" I exclaimed. "Look! There are three men lurking under that wall
over yonder!"

"I know," he laughed. "They're our friends. To-night we shall avenge the
death of the poor pilot Pavely. But remain silent, and you'll see!"

I noted that the three dark figures concealed near us were water-side
labourers, fellows whose rough-looking exteriors were the reverse of
reassuring. Yet I recollected that every man who worked on the
Blackwater or the Crouch was a patriot, ready to tear the mask from the
spies of England's enemies.

We must have waited in patience fully three hours, when again from the
timber-ship lying in the Blackwater came the laden boat, and again were
similar boxes landed and carried in the shadow up to the inn, the door
of which opened silently to receive them. Wherever the Customs officers
or police were, they noticed nothing amiss.

The two men had made their second journey to the "Goat and Binnacle,"
when Ray Raymond suddenly exclaimed:

"We're going to rush the place, Jacox. Have your gun ready"; and then he
gave a low whistle.

In a moment fully a dozen men, some of whom I recognised as Customs
officers in mufti and police in plain clothes, together with several
longshoremen, emerged from the shadow, and in a moment we had surrounded
the public-house.

The door had closed upon the two men who carried up the boxes, and a
demand that it should be reopened met with no response. Therefore a long
iron bar was procured from somewhere, and two policemen working with it
soon prised the door from its hinges.

The lights within had all been suddenly extinguished, but finding myself
in the little bar-parlour with two others of the party, I struck a vesta
and relit the gas.

Two of the mysterious wooden cases brought from the ship were standing
there.

We heard loud shouts in German, and a scuffle upon the stairs in the
darkness, followed by a shot. Then a woman's scream mingled with the
shouts and curses of my companions, and I found myself in the midst of a
wild melee, in which furniture and bottles were being smashed about me.
My friends were trying to secure Bramberger and Freeman, while both were
fighting desperately for their lives.

Ray made a sudden spring upon the young man who had been so attracted by
Vera Vallance, but for his pains received a savage cut in the arm from a