"Yes, I know you."
There was silence for an instant, while those who were in the secret eyed Colonel Sullivan askance, and those who were not gaped at Cammock.
Soldiers of fortune, of fame and name, were plentiful in those days, but seamen of equal note were few. And with this man's name the world had lately rung. An Irishman, he had risen high in Queen Anne's service; but at her death, incited by his devotion to the Stuarts, he had made a move for them at a critical moment. He had been broken, being already a notable man; on which, turning his back on an ungrateful country, as he counted it, he had entered the Spanish marine, which the great minister Alberoni was at that moment reforming. He had been advanced to a position of rank and power—Spain boasted no stouter seaman; and in the attempt on which Alberoni was bent, to upset the Protestant succession in England, Admiral Cammock was a factor of weight. He was a bold, resolute man, restrained by no fine scruples, prepared to take risks himself, and not too prone to think for others. In Ireland his life was forfeit, Great Britain counted him renegade and traitor. So that to find himself recognised, though grateful to his vanity, was a shock to his discretion.
"Well, and knowing me?" he replied at last, with the tail of his eyes on the Bishop, as if he would gladly gain a hint from his subtlety. "What of me?"
"You have your home, your rank, your relations abroad," Colonel Sullivan answered firmly. "And if a descent on the coast be a part of your scheme, then you do not share the peril equally with us. You are here to-day and elsewhere to-morrow. We shall suffer, while you sail away."
"I fling that in your teeth!" Cammock cried. "I know you too, sir, and——"
"Know no worse of me than of yourself!" Colonel Sullivan retorted. "But if you do indeed know me, you know that I am not one to stand by and see my friends led blindfold to certain ruin. It may suit your plans to make a diversion here. But that diversion is a part of larger schemes, and the fate of those who make it is little to you."
Cammock's hand flew to his belt, he took a step forward, his face suffused with passion.
"For half as much I have cut a man down!" he cried.
"May be, but——"