for the coming flight.

Courtenay, I was glad to see, was so completely heart-whole that he was
in the highest possible spirits; and he did such ample justice to the
dinner set before us as in some degree to make up for my own
shortcomings in that respect. The meal over we dismissed Pedro for the
night, and then proceeded to pack up our dilapidated uniforms in a small
parcel, to assist in our identification as British officers should such
prove necessary. This brought the time on to about half-past seven, at
which hour we had arranged to meet again in the park, Inez having
insisted--much against my wish--in accompanying us to the cove and
satisfying herself as to the fact of our actual escape.

The walk to the cove was not a long one, only some three miles or so,
but it occupied us a full hour and a half, and a very wretched time it
proved for both of us.

We reached the place fixed upon as the point for our embarkation at nine
o'clock, and a few minutes later a small wavering black blotch appeared
through the intense darkness off the entrance. We heard the sound of a
coil of rope being flung upon a deck, followed by a creaking of blocks;
then a scraping sound and a splash such as would be caused by the
launching of a boat over the low gunwale of a small craft, an indistinct
murmur of voices for a moment, and then the plash of oars in the water.
The distance to be traversed by the boat was not more than three or four
hundred feet; I therefore had time only to breathe a hurried and
inarticulate word or two of final farewell to Inez, during which I
slipped on to her slender finger the only ring I possessed, when a
grating sound down by the water's edge told us that the boat had
grounded, and we hurried away down the beach.

The boat was a tiny cockle-shell of a craft, with only one man in her,
and he was just hauling her nose up out of the water as we reached him.

"Oh, you are here, excellencies!" he exclaimed in a tone of some little
surprise, I thought. "So much the better. Jump in, caballeros, and let
us be off; there is another craft creeping down under the land, only a
mile or so astern of us, of which el capitano feels somewhat suspicious,
and he will be glad to make a good offing before she comes up."

"All right, my man!" said Courtenay as we tumbled into the stern-sheets
of the small craft; "shove off as soon as you like."

The man placed his shoulder against the stem of the boat and gave her a
powe