"My father was a Tiverton man, born and bred."
"That does away with the last shadow of a doubt. Mr. Brabazon, I am especially glad to make your acquaintance, and still more pleased that it is in my power to be of some slight service to you."
Before more could be said, one of the men came pack, and after whispering something to him, to which he replied by a curt nod, disappeared once more.
Turning again to Burgo, the captain of the Naiad said: "I am called away, but you may rely upon seeing me again in less than an hour. A few minutes after that, Mr. Brabazon, you will be a free man."
He nodded, turned away, and was gone.
[CHAPTER XIX.]
THE CAPTAIN OF THE "NAIAD."
Burgo stood staring at the door without stirring for quite two minutes after the captain of the Naiad had disappeared down the staircase, his brain in such a maze of stupefaction and bewilderment that more than once he caught himself saying aloud, "Yes, it is really a fact that I'm awake."
Hitherto he had only been half dressed, and he now proceeded in an automatic way to finish his toilet, after which he went on to cram and strap his portmanteau so that everything might be in readiness when the promised moment of his deliverance should have arrived.
"As my old nurse used to be so fond of remarking, it never rains but it pours," he said to himself with a philosophic shrug. "If I could only have foreseen what was going to happen, I might have spared myself all my drudgery with the file. And yet it has done me no harm. It has helped to divert my thoughts and to while away the time. Besides, had I not been seen from the yacht while at work at the window I should have been left to effect my escape alone as best I could. In any case, I shall regain my freedom twenty-four hours before I expected to do, which, circumstanced as I am, may prove an invaluable boon. As for this remarkable stranger--why he should be so eager to do me a service; why he and his fellows, if they are nothing more than peaceful yachtsmen, should be going about at midnight armed to the teeth, and why, by some means at present unknown to me, they should have forced their way into the tower for no apparent purpose except that their leader might be able to satisfy an apparently idle curiosity--are conundrums all which I should be no nearer solving at the end of a year than I am now. Let us hope that my friend with the cutlass will solve them satisfactorily before we part. He said he would be back in an hour. Will he keep his promise? Yes; I have faith in him."