u obey my signals to heave-to?"

"Signals! I never see no signals."

"How dare you, sir! you know I fired."

"Oh, them! We thought you was practisin', and hauled down till you'd
done, for the balls was flying very near."

"Where are you from?"

"From? Nowheres. We been out all night fishing."

"What's your port?"

"Shoreham."

"And what have you on board? Who are those people?"

Those two people had been seen on the instant by Hilary Leigh, as they
sat below the half-deck of the lugger, shrinking from observation in the
semi-darkness. He had noticed that, though wearing rough canvas
covering similar to those affected by a crew in stormy weather, they
were of a different class; and as the lieutenant was in converse with
the skipper of the lugger, he climbed over the lowered sail between, and
saw that one of the two whom the other tried to screen was quite a young
girl.

It was but a momentary glance, for she hastily drew a hood over her
face, as she saw that she was noticed.

"Jacobites for a crown!" said Hilary to himself, as he saw a pair of
fierce dark eyes fixed upon him.

"Who are you?" he exclaimed.

"Hush, for heaven's sake!" was the answer whispered back; "don't you
know me, Leigh? A word from you and they will shoot me like a dog."

At the same moment there was a faint cry, and Hilary saw that the young
girl had sunk back, fainting.

CHAPTER TWO.

A STRICT SEARCH.

"Sir Henry!" ejaculated Hilary Leigh; and for the moment his heart
seemed to stand still, for his duties as a king's officer had brought
him face to face with a dear old friend, at whose house he had passed
some of his happiest days, and he knew that the disguised figure the
Jacobite gentleman sought to hide was his only daughter, Adela, Hilary's
old playmate and friend, but so grown and changed that he hardly
recognised her in the momentary glance he had of her fair young face.

"Hush! silence! Are you mad?" was the reply, in tones that set the
young man's heart beating furiously, for he knew that Sir Henry Norland
was proscribed for the part he had take in the attempt of the Young
Pretender, and Leigh had thought that he was in France.

"Who are they, Mr Leigh?" said the lieutenants striding over the lumber
in the bottom of the boat.

"Seems to be an English gentleman, sir," said Leigh, in answer to an
agonised appeal from Sir Henry's eyes.

"I am an English gentleman, sir, and this is my daughter. She is ver