CHAPTER XXXIX
THE FLAP OF A FLAG
The Parson was staring through the spy-glass at Beachy Head.
A mile and a half away, it lay in misty splendour, not unlike a lion sleeping.
At the foot of it a few tiny black figures moved among the rocks.
"I make out about a score of em," he said. "The boat's beached, and a man over it. I can catch the glint on his gun-barrel. We can't get at em except along the shore, hang it! They'd see us coming a mile off."
"If we can't get at the boat," said Kit, "neither can the Gentleman."
"That's truth," mused the Parson, dropping the glass.
"He'll prowl about till night-fall probably. Then he'll have a chance —if they've got liquor. The boat's his one hope. He's in a tightish place, mind!—enemy's country; wings clipped; his old friends his best enemies."
"And he doesn't know whether the privateer's a Frenchman or not," said Kit. "Though, of course, he might come down to the shore and signal her—on chance."
"Not while it's light," replied the Parson grimly; "If he signalled from anywhere it'd be from here. And here I squat till dark. After dark he can signal till he's black in the face—he hasn't got a lantern."
The boy's anxious eyes were sea-ward.
The old pain of heart, forgotten for the moment in the cottage, had returned, the old sickening sense of failure. After all, the responsibility was his, and his alone. It was in him old Ding-dong had trusted; it was to him the scent-bottle had been bequeathed; the fate of Nelson rested on his shoulders.
Hither and thither his mind darted, seeking a way of escape from the net of circumstance.
"If we could only make sure of his thinking her an Englishman!" he fretted.
"She's flying no colours," said the Parson, "that's one good thing."
"I wish she'd fly the Union Jack," replied the boy.
The remark annoyed the Parson, practical or nothing.
"What's the good of wishing what can't be?" he snarled. "You might leave that to the women."
"Why can't it be?" retorted the boy hotly.
A sound behind him caught his ears. He turned to see the flag in the cottage chimney ruffling it behind the sycamores.
It flashed a message to his heart.
"By Jove, sir!" he panted. "I've got it."
The blood had rushed to his face, and ebbed as suddenly.
"Lend me your flag, and I'll swim out with it after dark!"
The Parson stared.
"To the privateer?"
"Why not? It can't be more than a few hundred yards. I've often done more."
"Well, what if you did get there?" curt and sarcastic. "Summon her to surrender, else you'd take her by storm and put the lot to the sword, I suppose?"
"Why, board her, sir, and run the flag up! She's not a man-of-war.
They'll be keeping no watch, likely as not."
The boy was in a white blaze.
"They won't see it till broad daylight!" he panted, pressing. "And by that time the Gentleman, if he's hanging about, will see it too. If they haul it down then and run up the tricolour, he'll think it's a decoy."
There was something contagious about the lad's white-hot enthusiasm.
The light was coming and going in the Parson's eyes.
The scheme was as mad as you like. Still, there was a chance of success, a fighting chance. And was it not the only one?
Himself he no more doubted the lad's story than he doubted that a month since he had crossed swords with Fighting Fitz. But who else would believe?
Of course he must send Knapp over to Lewes at once to report to Beau
Beauchamp, the Commandant there; but what would come of that?
Loving his old Service with passionate jealousy, he was not blind to the weakness of its traditional logic: it was not probable; therefore it was not true; and so to sleep again, dear boys!
And Beau Beauchamp, of all men!
The Parson had not yet forgotten the reception that heavy sensualist had given to his report that Fighting Fitz was riding up and down the land just outside his lines.
"May I, sir?"
The boy was burning at his side. Perforce the Parson began to smoulder too.
The adventure had just that smack of romance about it that tickled this man of prose. Could he have run the risk himself, he who could hardly swim to the bottom, he would have ventured it with laughing heart. Was he justified in staying the sailor-boy?
No, no, no! his heart thundered the answer at him.
There must always be a risk. And was ever risk better worth running than this one? But what a boy!
He was flaming merrily now.
"May I, sir?"
He turned to the lad, pale beside him, and smacked a hand into his.
"Kit!" he cried with gusty laughter, "you should have been a soldier!"