r father's
side, while he broaches the matter to her. And this he did with some
difficulty (for 'tis no easy thing to make a roguish plot look
innocent), as we could see by his shifting his bundle from one shoulder
to the other now and again, scratching his ear and the like; but what he
said, we, walking a pace or two behind, could not catch, he dropping to
a very low tone as if ashamed to hear his own voice. To all he has to
tell she listens very attentively, but in the end she says something
which causes him to stop dead short and turn upon her gaping like a pig.

"What!" he cries as we came up. "You knew all this two months ago?"

"Yes, father," answers she, primly, "quite two months."

"And pray who told you?" he asks.

"No one, father, since you forbade me to ask questions. But though I may
be dumb to oblige you, I can't be deaf. Kit and you are for ever
a-talking of it."

"Maybe, child," says Dawson, mightily nettled. "Maybe you know why we
left Alicante this morning."

"I should be dull indeed if I didn't," answers she. "And if you hadn't
said when we saw the ships that we might meet more Englishmen in the
town than we might care to know hereafter, why,--well, maybe we should
have been in Alicante now."

"By denying yourself that satisfaction," says Don Sanchez, "we may
conclude that the future we are making for you is not unacceptable."

Moll stopped and says with some passion:

"I would turn back now and go over those mountains the way we came to
ride through France in my fine gown like a lady."

"Brava! bravamente!" says the Don, in a low voice, as she steps on in
front of us, holding her head high with the recollection of her former
state.

"She was ever like that," whispers Dawson, with pride. "We could never
get her to play a mean part willingly; could we, Kit? She was for ever
wanting the part of a queen writ for her."

The next day about sundown, coming to a little eminence, Don Sanchez
points out a dark patch of forest lying betwixt us and the mountains,
and says:

"That is Elche, the place where we are to stay some months."

We could make out no houses at all, but he told us the town lay in the
middle of the forest, and added some curious particulars as how, lying
on flat ground and within easy access of the sea, it could not exist at
all but for the sufferance of the Spaniards on one side and of the
Barbary pirates on the other, how both for their own convenience
respected it as neutr