"We've got to move soon," growled the captain. "No ship will ever put into this port for us. We must march to Halifax."
"Golly! guess dis chile see himself marchin' ter Halifax," the negro murmured, when the captain had left the barn.
Captain Bones was quartered at the best fisherman's cabin in the neighborhood. It was not much of a shelter, but it was the best he could find. Captain Bones was provoked at the delay in Fernando's recovery. He knew he was an impressed American, and if he left him, he would be lost to the service, and yet he dared not much longer delay going to Halifax.
He was bargaining with a coasting schooner to take himself and crew to Halifax, when one evening Terrence came to him with a very serious face, as if the fortunes of Great Britain were in peril.
"Captain, it's bad news I have for ye," said Terrence. "The brandy is all gone, and divil a bit o' whiskey can be had for love or money." This was alarming to Captain Bones; but Terrence suggested that three miles away lived a farmer Condit, whose cellar abounded with kegs of apple jack and cider. Condit was a rabid republican and would not give a Briton a drop if he were dying for it; but, if the captain would be taken into his confidence, he had a little scheme to propose which had a trifle of risk in it, just enough to give spice to it.
His plan was nothing more than to dress in citizen's clothes, enter the cellar after night and carry away some, if not all, of the kegs of apple jack.
Captain Bones, who enjoyed a frolic, thought the plan an excellent one.
But he begged to allow the first lieutenant to become a party to the frolic. This was just as Terrence wished, for he had intended to suggest the first lieutenant himself. It was agreed that on Saturday night next, the three, dressed in citizen's clothes, were to go to the home of the farmer, enter his cellar and secure enough apple jack and hard cider to alleviate the thirst of Captain Bones, during his stay in the neighborhood.
Farmer Condit, the day before the intended burglary, received a very mysterious letter in a very mysterious manner. It read as follows:
"Farmer Condit: Saturday night your house is to be robbed. I am one of a band of robbers who are to rob you. I was forced to join them or be killed, and will have to go with them that night. Have a few constables ready to seize them. They will not fight; but let the man in tall, peaked, brown hat, white trousers and gray coat escape, for that is me. If you could let me escape and seize the others, you would set at liberty a poor fellow creature, who warns you at the risk of his life.