"Monsieur, it is my honour to serve his Majesty without reservation, even when he chooses to put a slight upon his tried servants. Unfold your scheme. We will listen and lend you our best co-operation."
"I thank you, monsieur. Is that all?"
"No, sir; not quite all. You will permit me in addition to remark that you are a very dirty blackguard, and that if you choose to resent this criticism, I am your very obedient servant."
"Ah, yes! We will discuss that, if you please, as soon as this business is over. Meanwhile let me proceed with my remarks."
That same evening Captain Salt assumed the command and within half an hour it was patent to every slave in the squadron that something beyond the ordinary was afoot. The new commander began to issue orders at once. Curiously enough, one of the first of these was given to the fishing-smack with the green pennant, which had brought him the Earl of Marlborough's letter five days before and had lain at anchor ever since in the Basin. It was pretty well known to everyone in Dunkirk that this little craft plied to and fro in the Jacobite service and was allowed to pass the forts without challenge. Indeed, she had a special permit. Therefore nobody wondered when Captain Salt paid her red-bearded skipper a visit that evening, on his way to the citadel; nor was the skipper astonished to receive a letter for the Earl of Marlborough's secret agent at Ostend, and be bidden to leave the harbour that night.
Yet the red-bearded skipper would have been considerably astonished had he been able to read the cipher in which this letter was written, or had he the faintest idea that the small mark on the corner of the wrapper meant that it was to be translated at once and dispatched post-haste to King William.
For, indeed, the Captain was now playing not merely a double, but a triple and perhaps a quadruple game. He was not only playing for William against James, and for James against William, but for the Earl against both, and for himself above all. For the moment he wished to get to Harwich with power over the two old men who (as he conceived it) were defrauding him of his privileges; and to obtain full possession of those privileges he must stand well with William, who at present suspected him.
What better proof could he offer that his journey had been all in his master's interest than by engaging the six galleys at Dunkirk in an attack upon Harwich, and forewarning the King of his design? Or how could the Earl have a better chance of clearing himself of the King's suspicions than by receiving this warning and passing it on to the King?
Unfortunately this accomplished schemer omitted to take account of three accidents, for the simple reason that he could not have anticipated them: first, the two old men whom he meant to terrify at Harwich were at that moment in Holland; and, second, the son, in whose name he meant to terrify them, slept every night within a foot of his head, a galley-slave, disguised beyond recognition and filled with a just resentment. Number three will be mentioned hereafter.
The little fishing-smack sailed out of Dunkirk that evening, an hour after sunset.