y, the smugglers in their flight might lock the door behind them
and so have time to get away in a boat or along at the foot of the
cliffs before their pursuers could get down to the lower entrance and
open fire upon them."

Then he lay down again. He wondered whether the pull of the bell he had
heard could be hidden in the grass like the handle of the trap. It might
only be a very small knob, but he had looked so closely among the
bushes that he wondered it had escaped him. In three or four minutes the
French captain came down again, and walked across to where he was lying:

"_Pauvre diable!_" he muttered, and then went back to the table, filled
himself a glass of spirits and water, and lit his pipe. A moment later a
thought seemed to strike him, and he came across to Julian again and
touched him. He at once sat up. The Frenchman motioned him to come to
the table, went to a cupboard, brought out a wooden platter with a large
lump of cold beef and a loaf of bread and some cheese, poured him out a
horn of brandy and water, and motioned him to eat. Julian attacked the
food vigorously. He had had some lunch with his friends before starting
for his walk back to Weymouth, but that had been nearly seven hours
before, and his run across the hills in the keen air had given him a
sharp appetite, so he did full justice to the food.

"This is not a bad fellow after all," he said to himself, as the
smuggler, when he had finished, brought out a box of cigars and placed
it before him. "He would have knocked me on the head without
compunction, in the way of business; but now when he has concluded that
I am not dangerous, he comes out as a good fellow." He nodded pleasantly
to the Frenchman as he lit the cigar, which was an excellent one, and
far better than any Julian had been accustomed to smoke with his
associates in the billiard room.

The Frenchman's thoughts were not dissimilar to his own. "He is a brave
_garcon_," he said to himself, "and makes the best of things. He is a
fine-looking fellow, too, and will be a big man in another year or two.
It is a misfortune that we have got to take him and shut him up in
prison. Why did he mix himself up in this affair of Markham? That is the
way with boys. Instead of being grateful to the man that had killed his
enemy, he must needs run after him as if he had done him an injury.
Well, it can't be helped now; but, at least, I will make him as
comfortable as I can as long as he is on board