dow, speaking earnestly to her,
pointing to the square, in which, already, the darkness hid us. I saw
the listlessness fall from her. She seemed to waken up into intense life
in an instant. She walked with a swift decision peculiar to her
away from the window, leaving the hulking fellow, an elderly,
dissolute-looking man, with the wild puffy eyes of the drinker, to pick
his teeth in full view of the square.

When we left watching our enemies, Mr. Jermyn bade me walk on tiptoe. We
scurried away across the square diagonally, pausing twice to listen for
pursuers. No one seemed to be following. There was not much sense in
following; for the guard was busy searching for suspicious persons. We
heard them challenging passers-by, with a rattle of their halberds
on the stones, to make their answers prompt. We were safe enough from
persecution for the time. We went down a dark street into a dark alley.
From the alley we entered a courtyard, the sides of which were vast
houses. We entered one of these houses. The door seemed to open in the
mysterious way which had puzzled me so much in Fish Lane. Mr. Jermyn
smiled when I asked him how this was done. "Go on in, boy," he said.
"There are many queer things in lives like ours." He gave me a shove
across the threshold, while the door closed itself silently behind us.

He took me into a room which was not unlike a marine store of the better
sort. There were many sailor things (all of the very best quality) lying
in neat heaps on long oak shelves against the walls. In the middle of
the room a table was laid for dinner.

Mr. Jermyn made me eat a hearty meal before starting, which I did. As
I ate, he fidgeted about among some lockers at my back. Presently, as I
began to sip some wine which he had poured out for me, he put something
over my shoulders.

"Here," he said, "this is the satchel, Martin. Keep the straps drawn
tight always. Don't take it off till you give it into Mr. Blick's hands.
His own hands, remember. Don't take it off even at night. When you lie
down, lash it around your neck with spun-yarn." All this I promised most
faithfully to do. "But," I said, examining the satchel, which was like
an ordinary small old weather-beaten satchel for carrying books, "where
are the letters, sir?"

"Sewn into the double," he answered. "You wouldn't be able to sew so
neatly as that. Would you, now?"

"Oh, yes, I should, sir," I replied. "I am a pretty good hand with a
sail-needle. The O