pleases. I'll
trouble you to look this way, sir."

They had emerged from the wooded part of the park, and the rising
ground on which they stood commanded a wide sea-view, west of the
great bay.

"There she is again, sir," said Mr. Hobson, waving his broad paw, like a
showman displaying his goods, with a sort of enraged self-satisfaction.
"There is the schooner, ready to hoist sail as soon as he comes
alongside. And that there black point which you may see, if your eyes
are good enough, is a six-oared galley with as ship-shaped a crew--if
it's the same as I saw making off this morning--as ever pulled. Your
Captain Smith, you may take your oath, is at the tiller, and making
fun of us two to the lads. In five minutes he will be on board, and
then the revenue cutter from the station may give chase if she
likes!... And there she is, due to the time--about a mile astern.
But bless you, that's all my eye, you may take your oath! They know
well enough that in an open sea they can't run down a Salcombe
schooner. But to earn their pay they will hang on till they lose
her, and then sail home, all cosy.--I'm thinking," he added slily,
with a side glance at the magistrate: "we won't hang him _this_ time."

Mr. Landale made no answer; during the last few minutes his
reflections had enabled him to take a new view of the situation. After
all the future fate of Captain Jack was of little moment. He had been
successfully exposed before Madeleine, whose love for the young man
was, as had just been sufficiently proved, chiefly composed of those
youthful illusions which dispelled once, never can return.

Rupert fell gradually into a reverie in which he found curious
satisfaction. His work had not been unsuccessful, whatever Mr.
Hobson's opinion might be. But, as matters stood between Madeleine and
her lover, the girl's eyes had been opened in time, and that without
scandal.... And even the escape of Captain Jack was, upon reflection,
the best thing that could have happened.

And so it was with a return to his usual polite bearing, that he
listened to the officer's relapse into expostulation.

"Now if you had only given me the hint first of all," the man was
grumblingly saying, "and then let me act--for who would have suspected
a boat, yacht-rigged like that?--A friend of Sir Adrian's, too! If
you'd only left it to me! Why that six-oared galley alone is agin the
law unless you can prove good reason for it ... as for the vessel
hersel