w jar against the
partition, but he too was silent, save that I could hear his hurried
breathing.

Then some one spoke again--

"Can't you hear me there? I says, how are you getting on?"

"Bob Hampton!" I cried excitedly.

"Pst! Steady, my lad. Bob Hampton it is. But don't shout, or some 'un
'll hear you, and 'll come along the deck overhead and cut me adrift."

"But what are you doing there?"

"Hanging on to a bit o' line made fast to a belaying-pin."

"But why? What do you want, sir?"

"Will yer keep quiet, my lad?" whispered the man, excitedly. "I don't
want to hear old Jarette sawing through this rope. What do I want?
Come, I like that, arter risking all this here to get a word with you."

"Go back to your friends, you scoundrel," whispered Mr Frewen; "you
have come to spy upon us!"

"Wheer's my lantern, then? Man can't spy a night like this, when it's
as black as inside a water-cask in a ship's hold."

"Mr Frewen is right," I said. "Go back to your friends."

"Arn't got none forrard, leastwise only two; I've come to say `how de
do.'"

"Don't trust him, Mr Frewen, he's a traitor," I whispered; only Hampton
evidently heard.

"Come, I like that, Mr Dale, sir. But I say, how could you be so
easily took in? Theer was nothing else for a man to do but to go with
the bad beggars, and when I seemed to jyne 'em, why of course Neb Dumlow
and old Barney joined at once."

"Bob!" I ejaculated, as a feeling of delight sent a flush of blood to
my cheeks, and I felt hot and excited once more, "you don't mean to say
that--"

"But I just do, sir. 'Tarn't likely I should run all this risk if I
didn't mean it."

"You hear, Mr Frewen," I whispered.

"Yes, but--"

"Look here," said Bob Hampton, angrily, "am I to creep in and stuff
something into your mouth, Mr Dale, sir? You don't know how sounds run
on a still night like this. It's grim death for me if I'm found out."

"Then you are true to us all the same, Bob?" I cried, reaching out to
lay my hand upon the man's shoulder.

"True as gorspel, sir; and ready along with Neb Dumlow and Barney Blane
to pitch old Frenchy overboard, or drown him in a water-cask, if you say
the word, or Mr Frewen either, though I'd rayther take it from you, my
lad, as you're one of the officers of the Burgh Castle and it'd come
better like than from our doctor, and no disrespectment either."

"How are we to know that we are to trust you, Hampton?" said Mr Frewen.