doors further on we came to a halt, and got down from our horses.

Rangsley knocked on a shutter-panel, two hard knocks with the crop and
three with the naked fist. Then a lock clicked, heavy bars rumbled, and
a chain rattled. Rangsley pushed me through the doorway. A side door
opened, and I saw into a lighted room filled with wreaths of smoke. A
paunchy man in a bob wig, with a blue coat and Windsor buttons, holding
a churchwarden pipe in his right hand and a pewter quart in his left,
came towards us.

"Hullo, captain," he said, "you'll be too late with the lights, won't
you?" He had a deprecatory air.

"Your watch is fast, Mr. Mayor," Rangsley answered surlily; "the tide
won't serve for half an hour yet."

"Cht, cht," the other wheezed. "No offence. We respect you. But still,
when one has a stake, one likes to know."

"My stake's all I have, and my neck," Rangsley said impatiently; "what's
yours? A matter of fifty pun ten?... Why don't you make them bring they
lanthorns?"

A couple of dark lanthorns were passed to Rangsley, who half-uncovered
one, and lit the way up steep wooden stairs. We climbed up to a tiny
cock-loft, of which the side towards the sea was all glazed.

"Now you sit there, on the floor," Rangsley commanded; "can't leave
you below; the runners will be coming to the mayor for new warrants
to-morrow, and he'd not like to have spent the night in your company."

He threw a casement open. The moon was hidden from us by clouds, but,
a long way off, over the distant sea, there was an irregular patch of
silver light, against which the chimneys of the opposite houses were
silhouetted. The church clock began muffledly to chime the quarters
behind us; then the hour struck--ten strokes.

Rangsley set one of his lanthorns on the window and twisted the top. He
sent beams of yellow light shooting out to seawards. His hands quivered,
and he was mumbling to himself under the influence of ungovernable
excitement. His stakes were very large, and all depended on the flicker
of those lanthorns out towards the men on the luggers that were hidden
in the black expanse of the sea. Then he waited, and against the light
of the window I could see him mopping his forehead with the sleeve
of his coat; my heart began to beat softly and insistently--out of
sympathy.

Suddenly, from the deep shadow of the cloud above the sea, a yellow
light flashed silently cut--very small, very distant, very short-lived.
Rangsley heaved