"Shut oop!" he cried, addressing Grogan. "The smugglers are upon us! Draw your wippons, if you have any, and fire!"
"Dom tha wippons!" Grogan howled, refusing to hear to reason. "Och! holy Vargin! it's kilt sure I am ontirely!"
"Helloo! what the devil is the matter here?" the captain shouted, waving his lantern on high. "Who is it that's making all this noise?"
"Spies—detectives!" suggested one of his companions. "Shoot 'em down!"
"Hurrah! Death to the spy!" cried a third, and then they made a rush forward and seized upon Pat, despite his lively use of his "bit o' buckthorn" on the defensive.
Perceiving that he was not seen, Fritz crawled softly away to a safe distance, and then paused to gaze back.
The yelling had ceased in the vicinity of the house, and the lantern light had disappeared from view, leaving naught but blank darkness and the pouring rain, which came down monotonously but heavily.
"I'll bet a half-dollar dot they've choked der life oud off dot duke's son-off-a-gun," Fritz muttered, creeping under the cover of a dense tree. "I vonder off I proke any of his pones ven I lit on him. By shimminy! he must haff a gonstitution like a mule, or I'd 'a' smashed him all to sausage meat."
Evidently something was to pay, for, except the sound of the storm and the dashing of the ocean against the bluff, all was quiet. The smugglers had either killed Grogan on the spot or taken him back into the house with them.
And poor Hartly—what had become of him?