“Well!”
“Well, Oi caught ’un as he were a getting off the roof of the little shippen, and he got away, runnin’ as hard as he could towards the village yonder. But Oi come oop with him, and Oi says, says Oi, ‘What be tha doing of?’ says Oi. ‘Tha’ve been spying,’ says Oi. Then says he: ‘’Tain’t Oi as have been spying, Bill Plunder,’ says he. And he told as how ’twere Miss Joan Langney as had sent him for to see if there was spies about the barn, and as how he’d caught hold of a man’s leg that was a looking through the slit in the big barn winder to-night.”
As Bill Plunder uttered these words, a storm of curses and oaths burst from the listening smugglers. There was a movement, a stamping of feet, a rattling of weapons. And Tregenna, brave man though he was, felt the blood run cold in his veins, as he thought of the fate which would be his if he should fall into their hands that night.
“’Twas the lieutenant, for sure! Curses on him!” cried Ben the Blast, bringing his heavy heel down sharply on the tiled floor as he spoke. “And whither did he go? Answer that! Whither, I say, whither?”
“That the lad didn’t know no more’n you do. He said as how he caught hold of the leg of the fellow that was spying, and as how he was flung off and down to the ground. And as how he looked and looked, and searched and hunted, but couldn’t get not so much as a sight of him no more. And as how he dursn’t call to any of us, for fear as he should be caught for a spy hisself. That’s the lad’s tale, and Oi believe it’s the truth, for ’od’s fish, Oi made him tremble in’s shoes.”
“Why didst not bring him hither?” asked Robin, shortly. “We’d have knocked the truth out of’s maw, I’ll warrant! Which way did he go, blockhead?”
“’Tis no matter for the boy!” cried Ben, in a voice of thunder. “’Tis for the man we must be looking! Do you, mates, search the yard and the shippens, while Ann and me’ll do the bit of road, and the bushes in front yonder!”
“He’ll be gotten clear away by this,” grumbled Gardener Tom.
“Not he. ’Tis for spying he’s come, and he’d not go back so soon, and with all of us about, too. Nay, he’ll be on the premises still, somewheres, and, odds my life, we’ll make short work of him when we find him. We’ll tie him on the brown mare, and whip him till he swoons, and then we’ll put his body down the Monks’ Well that lies t’other side of the hill yonder.”
Then the shrill, thin whining voice of Long Jack broke in upon the thunder of the others. Almost sobbing, and speaking in accents of real terror, he said, thickly, and with uncertain intonation—