“Well met, good folk! Whither away—”
The second mate told the port to which they were making. The man in the window was a person of importance to the Eagle and its seamen. The mate spoke with deference, and was ready to listen when the agent proposed that he and the two shipwrecked folk enter the Hour-Glass and drink a cup of wine. He knew that the agent had seemed to have a liking for the castaways—and they were not precisely folk under suspicion, but only to be, as it were, certified for. The agent spoke again with a touch of authority, and the mate said, “Very good, sir, and thank you kindly! A few minutes won’t matter.”
The determined-faced man had the inn’s best room and had it to himself. He welcomed into it Giles and Ellice Herne, but left the mate in the common room with the host and a command for what he pleased to drink.
The mate spoke again. “I’m ordered, sir, not to let the shipwrecked people out of my sight.”
“If you stay where you are you will see them still,” said the agent. “There is but one door to this room, and I leave it open.”
The room had a sanded floor, a table, and benches. Outside the clouds were parting, and now a stormy sunlight broke through the window. The street began again to fill with people and their voices came confusedly into the room. A drawer brought wine.
“I frequent this inn,” said the agent. “Moreover, by good luck, I find that a man whom I greatly desire to see is in London and sleeps here at the Hour-Glass. I await him now, and in the mean time lack entertainment.—I was glad to see you coming up the street.” He poured wine. “Here’s to the Eagle and freedom!—Has England changed to your eyes?”
“Yes and no,” said Aderhold.
Bow bells were ringing. The sunlight suddenly flooded the room. Without the door the mate’s rumbling voice was heard. “Two castaways—”
“I have been gone a year,” said the agent. “The man that I am looking for is a coming man in England, and I expect to learn from him—”