and his Castro, too. They'll have me in jail betwixt
them. They're both in my red barn, if you want their direction. . . ."

He hurried on suddenly up the hill, leaving me gazing upwards at him.
When I caught him up he was swearing--as one did in those days--and
stamping his foot in the middle of the road.

"I tell you," he said violently, "it's the most accursed business! That
Castro, with his Cuba, is nothing but a blasted buccaneer... and Carlos
is no better. They go to Liverpool for a passage to Jamaica, and see
what comes of it!"

It seems that on Liverpool docks, in the owl-light, they fell in with an
elderly hunks just returned from West Indies, who asks the time at the
door of a shipping agent. Castro pulls out a watch, and the old fellow
jumps on it, vows it's his own, taken from him years before by some
picaroons on his outward voyage. Out from the agent's comes another, and
swears that Castro is one of the self-same crew. He himself purported to
be the master of the very ship. Afterwards--in the solitary dusk among
the ropes and bales--there had evidently been some play with knives, and
it ended with a flight to London, and then down to Rooksby's red barn,
with the runners in full cry after them.

"Think of it," Rooksby said, "and me a justice, and... oh, it drives me
wild, this hole-and-corner work! There's a filthy muddle with the Free
Traders--a whistle to blow after dark at the quarry. To-night of all
nights, and me a justice... and as good as a married man!"

I looked at him wonderingly in the dusk; his high coat collar almost hid
his face, and his hat was pressed down over his eyes. The thing seemed
incredible to me. Here was an adventure, and I was shocked to see that
Rooksby was in a pitiable state about it.

"But, Ralph," I said, "I would help Carlos."

"Oh, you," he said fretfully. "You want to run your head into a noose;
that's what it comes to. Why, I may have to flee the country. There's
the red-breasts poking their noses into every cottage on the Ashford
road." He strode on again. A wisp of mist came stealing down the hill.
"I can't give my cousin up. He could be smuggled out, right enough. But
then I should have to get across salt water, too, for at least a year.
Why----"

He seemed ready to tear his hair, and then I put in my say. He needed a
little persuasion, though, in spite of Veronica.

I should have to meet Carlos Riego and Castro in a little fir-wood above
the quarry, in half