r and farther on."

"Never mind. I'll get the men together, and we'll go back to the place
and soon find it. Oh, how vexatious! Which way does the sea lie?"

There was not a star to be seen, and the night was darker than ever.

He listened, but the night was too calm for the waves to be heard at the
foot of the cliffs, and, gaze which way he would, there was nothing but
dimly seen rugged ground with occasional slopes of smooth, short grass.

"Ahoy!" he cried at last, and "Ahoy!" came back faintly.

"Hurrah!" he said, after answering again, and walking in the direction
from which the cry came, downward in one of the combe-like hollows of
the district. "No one need be lost for long, if he has a voice. Don't
hear any of the others though."

He shouted again and again, getting answers, and gradually diminishing
the distance, till he saw dimly the figure of a stoutly built man, and
the next minute he was saluted with,--

"Oh, it's you, is it, Mr Raystoke? Pretty run you've led me. Pray
what sort of a game do you call this?"

"Game, sir!" said Archy ruefully; "it's horribly hard work!"

"Hard work! To you, sir--a mere boy! Then what do you suppose it is to
me? I have hardly a breath left in me."

"But where are the men Mr Gurr?"

"The men, Mr Raystoke, sir? That's what I was going to ask you. Now
just have the goodness to tell me what you mean by forgetting all the
discipline you have been taught, and leading these poor chaps off on
such a wild-goose chase."

"I, Mr Gurr?" said Archy in astonishment.

"Yes, sir, you, sir. What am I to say to Mr Brough when we get back?
I am in command of this expedition, and you lead the men away like a
pack of mad March hares, and now I find you here without them. Where
are they?"

"I don't know, sir."

"You don't know!"

"I thought they were with you."

"And you took them away and left them?"

"I didn't take them away!" cried the midshipman angrily.

"Then where are they, sir?"

"I don't know. You were close by me when they rushed off after that
boy."

"Sheep, sir."

"No, no, Mr Gurr; boy--Ram."

"Well, I said sheep, Mr Raystoke."

"No, no, boy; that's his name--Ram."

"Nonsense, sir; it was a sheep, and if it was not, it was a dog."

"I tell you, sir, it was the smuggler's boy, Ram,--the one who came
aboard after the cow."

"Hang the cow, sir! I want my men. Do you think I can go back on board
without them. Why, it's high treason for a