“We have been tricked!” cried the Captain.
The truth had burst upon Captain Culpeper with stunning force. He saw it all. He became as one beside himself. He stamped, he raved, he swore. They had allowed the prize actually to slip away when their hands were upon it.
The King must be pursued. They must pursue him hot-foot. Up hill and down dale, over the rocks, into the very jaws of the sea they must hunt the royal fugitive. He had but ten minutes start of them, and he was on foot.
No, he was not on foot. It seemed that he had taken a horse from the stable and had ridden away. Those who saw him do so believed that he had the Captain’s permission, as he was said to be on some errand of his Majesty lying upstairs.
The Captain gnashed his teeth. He drove his men out of the room before him like a flock of sheep. There was not a precious instant to lose. They must get to horse. Dark as it was, they must scour every yard of the surrounding country. There never was such a noise and a rattle as, with that, these soldiers fled down the stairs and forth of the kitchen door.
“To horse, to horse; the King is escaped!” was the cry that rang out to the rocks by the side of the sea. Horses stamped under the signboard of the “Sea Rover”; boots, spurs, and stirrups struck one against the other; bridles shook; hoarse commands were given; the cavalcade moved fiercely and swiftly away.
Now that the crisis was past, the landlord was sufficiently master of himself to watch them go from his door. After this fiasco it was highly necessary, he argued, that he should do all he could to win their favour and their confidence. Captain Culpeper, despite the rage and excitement under which he was labouring, called out as he sprang to the saddle:
“Landlord, I charge you to detain the man and the woman upstairs against my return, on the peril of your life. I hold you already responsible for the King’s escape. Do you watch over these two persons, therefore, yet more jealously. I cannot spare any of my men to look after them, but you have your son and that strapping servant-girl. We will fetch them as soon as maybe, and lodge them in greater security.”
While the last of these words were being uttered, Captain Culpeper and his troops were riding away. Stunned by their import, the landlord went within and closed the door. It was as though he had heard the sentence of his own death, for he knew it was wholly out of his power to detain the man and the woman upstairs should Diggory Fargus only prove true to his appointment. The sailor had promised to come, in the company of three of his friends, at half-past nine, to bear away the lady and her stricken husband.
If they came, what an irony it was to suppose that he, his son Joseph, and Cicely, the serving-maid, could possibly prevail against the redoubtable mariner and three of his pirates or his smugglers!