“Sworn to have my kisses!” echoed the lieutenant, in amazement. “Egad, then, she’ll be forsworn. Fear not, man; thy fair one has no charms for me, and truly she hath never met a man less like to bestow his kisses upon her. Where she is gone I know not: and if I were in thy shoes, I should be thankful she’d disappeared, and I should look about for something softer, something more like a woman, to whom to give my kindness!”
“Sir, one cannot give love where one will!” said poor Tom, rather ruefully. “If I do know why I love her, ’tis on account of her not being loike to every other lass in the parish; to her being so different from herself, as from all other women, that one never knows how she’s going for to be two hours together! So it ain’t no good of talking, sir; for, oons! I’ve loved her too long to go trapesing after another now!”
At that moment Tregenna caught sight of the first of his own men returning from a fruitless search for the rest of the smugglers. He turned quickly to Tom.
“Tom,” said he, “I cannot deal harshly with thee; get away with thee ere it be too late. For these fellows of mine dare not show so much leniency as I am doing.”
Tom took the hint. He was artful enough to make a feint of striking the lieutenant, making a movement which caused the latter to take an instinctive step backward, as if he had really been pushed aside. Tom then made a dash for the nearest opening between the houses; and being still wonderfully active when he chose to exert himself, he was lost to the sight of the cutter’s men in a few seconds.
CHAPTER XVIII
A PRISONER.
It was useless to pursue the smugglers any longer, and equally useless to make any plans for seizing them on land on their way back to the sloop. As they had friends all along the coast, it was very certain that they would make no attempt to re-embark from the beach at Hastings, but would reach the ship from some other point of the shore.
All that Tregenna could do, therefore, was to seize the boat they had left upon the beach, and then to return to the cutter. Here he learnt that the sloop had sailed away under cover of the mist, so that there was nothing for it but to take their chance of falling in with her crew on their way back to her.