"Why?" I inquired, a sudden suspicion flashing through my mind.
"'Cause a pack of rascally soldiers have taken charge of your cottage. They say that you are a Royalist, and that a price is set on your head. They've ransacked everything in your house, and I had great trouble to steal away and warn you. I'd flee, if I were you, while there is yet time."
"The man has given you good advice, and 'tis certain you ought to profit by it," remarked the colonel. "And we, too, are like to put our heads in a noose should we venture ashore. Clearly England is no place for us."
"So it seems," I replied despondently.
"Then there remains but one course open to the three of us," he continued. "Abroad we may seek refuge until such time that we can adventure our persons in a more successful enterprise. What say you?"
To this we all agreed, and after a consultation with Dick, the latter agreed to land us at Havre, in consideration of a certain sum of money; and before night the white cliffs of the Isle of Wight had vanished beneath the horizon.
* * * * *
Very little remains to be told. Directly we landed on French soil we hastened to offer our services to the Prince of Wales.
And here, in a strange land, we await, in common with a devoted and ever-growing band of loyal English refugees, the time when His Gracious Majesty King Charles II will, with the blessing of God, wrest his inheritance from the rebels, at whose lawless hands we have so grievously suffered for King and country.
THE END