“God save the King.”
The boats went shorewards at a good speed, looking like two gray beetles on the water crawling with white legs, the foam from the oars. They melted into the dusk, and the Rose veered and beat up against the breeze, to play mother till her boats returned.
The baggage and the twenty adventurers were landed in a horseshoe-shaped cove under the cliffs. Some one had been watching for them above, for a couple of men came scampering down the steep path, one of them waving a piece of red cloth.
“All’s well.”
The seamen pushed off and rowed back toward the Rose, but the men stood in a group on the shingle and talked.
“The King is at sea.”
“Sure enough.”
“And the Forest is up.”
“So soon!”
“A woman as usual! They stabbed young Dale in Gawdy Town, and would have taken his sister. So Falconer raised the Forest. Bland’s men came to beleaguer Woodmere; we ambushed thirty of them last night, so the fat is in the fire.”