"Just so, Mr. Goodman. But meanwhile I've come to arrange that the run may be made without interference."
"What! Do I hear ye aright? A king's officer name such a thing to me! 'Pon my soul and body, Mr. Hardy, I'm surprised at you. 'Twill be my duty—a painful duty, Mr. Hardy—to report the matter. Never in the whole seventeen years of my service have—"
"Quite so, Mr. Goodman," Jack interrupted. "But Admiral Horniman thinks that in this case the king's service requires this little departure from the ordinary course. And 'twill only make the capture of your rascals more certain in the end. We have to meet them with their own weapons—match ruse with ruse; and that's why, with the admiral's approval, I want you and your land-guard to help me."
Jack smiled so pleasantly and spoke with such an air of deference that the riding-officer, taking what he said as a compliment to his own astuteness, thawed.
"A capital idea, Mr. Hardy! Exactly; play their own game. The admiral was always a man of sense. But what do you propose?"
Then followed a long conversation, in which Jack explained as much of his plan as he thought would suffice. Mr. Goodman was captivated with the notion, and left by and by in high good-humor with Jack, himself, and everybody.
Jack did not know the time of the intended run. It would certainly not be before dark, so when he left the inn on the following afternoon he timed his departure so as to arrive near Luscombe just after darkness had fallen. The distance was nearly twenty miles across country. He drove some ten miles directly toward Luscombe, then struck inland for another seven miles, alighted at a cottage recommended by the riding-officer, and left the gig in charge of the owner, a trusty man, saying that he would meet him at the same place at daybreak next morning.
From the cottage to Luscombe the distance was about five miles. He knew the lay of the land, and, following unfrequented paths, came to the edge of Congleton's Hollow in about an hour and a half. Skirting this cautiously, he made his way along the edge of the stream that had formed the chine he now knew as Sandy Cove.
It was a good mile to the sea. Every now and then he stopped and listened, to make sure that he was not being followed; hereabouts he had come unexpectedly upon Gudgeon and De Fronsac. As he came near Gudgeon's farm he went with redoubled caution. He heard a sand-piper whistling; a few gulls screeched above his head; save for these there was silence.
He remembered having noticed, in the course of his rambles with Arthur, a large evergreen bush growing on a shelf of rock some distance above the bed of the stream. That seemed to him the very place at which to post himself, for while he could get from it a good view of what was happening on the shore only a few yards below, it was so thick, and so situated in relation to its surroundings, that he would run little danger there of being observed.