Doubledick's information to Mr. Polwhele was that the Isaac and Jacob might be expected to arrive at the creek from Roscoff about five o'clock in the morning. Some little time before that hour, therefore, the riding-officer took up his position in a hollow a hundred yards beyond the stream. In order that no suspicion might be engendered in the village, he had not brought his usual assistants, but was accompanied by a posse of excisemen from Newquay, and a half-troop of dragoons from Plymouth. At the same time Mr. Mildmay's cutter anchored in a sheltered cove northwards, having sailed in precisely the opposite direction on the previous night, in order to deceive the smugglers.
Mr. Polwhele had not long posted himself when some thirty strapping fellows, fishers and farm-hands for the most part, marched down the sloping ground south of the creek, and congregated at a spot where the bank was a foot or two above the water, a convenient place for the debarkation of the lugger's cargo. The murmur of their voices could be heard by the hidden preventive men across the stream, and Mr. Polwhele chuckled at the thought of the fine haul he was about to make. The excisemen with him were old hands, and knew how to keep silence, and the dragoons, although they hated this revenue work, were too well disciplined to hazard the failure of the ambuscade. Their horses had been left tethered half a mile away.
The minutes passed; five o'clock came, and both parties were on the alert for any sound from seaward. The wind blew from the north-east, so that it was not at all surprising that the lugger should be late. But when six o'clock came they began to be restless. It was tiring and comfortless, waiting in the misty gloom of a raw December morning. The sky was pitch dark. Neither party could see the other. The murmurs of the tub-carriers became louder, and the dragoons muttered and grumbled under their breath.
The night was yielding, the outlines of the country were becoming distinguishable, and yet the lugger did not come. Mr. Polwhele began to wonder whether he had been fooled, and inwardly promised Doubledick a bad quarter of an hour if this long vigil in cold and darkness proved vain. Jimmy Nancarrow, in charge of the tub-carriers, had misgivings of a chase and capture on the sea. Now that dawn was breaking, he went to the top of the cliff and looked out into the mist, but never a sign of the lugger did he see. As he descended to rejoin his men, something caught his eye among the bare trees in a hollow on the opposite bank. He crouched behind a gorse bush, and watched for some minutes; then, instead of continuing on his direct course downward, he crept away at an angle, taking advantage of every depression and furze-patch that afforded cover, and so came to his company again. He told them what he had seen. Consternation seized them; they became suddenly silent, then whispered anxiously among themselves.
There could be little doubt that they had been spied by the preventives. What was to be done? On the one hand they could not depart, leaving Tonkin unwarned, to fall into the hands of the revenue officers. On the other hand, they were in no mood or condition to relish a brush with dragoons, and it was certainly a dragoon's forage-cap that Nancarrow had descried. The best course seemed to be to wait; perhaps the revenue officers would grow weary first.
Another hour passed. Then the tub-carriers saw the nose of the revenue cutter appear round the corner of the cliff. The game was up. No run could be made: the lugger would not put in while the cutter was in sight; and Nancarrow and his men in sullen rage left their posts and set off to trudge homeward.
In a moment Mr. Polwhele was hailed by the lieutenant from the cutter.
"Ahoy there, Mr. Polwhele!" he shouted.
The riding-officer left his place of concealment, and moved to the edge of the cliff, within speaking distance of Mr. Mildmay.
"Tricked again!" he said, angrily. "My word! Doubledick shall suffer for this."