eaven that Capper make good speed!" said Dick. "I vow a candle
to St. Mary of Shoreby if he come before the hour!"

"Y'are in a hurry, Master Dick?" asked Greensheve.

"Ay, good fellow," answered Dick; "for in that house lieth my lady, whom
I love, and who should these be that lie about her secretly by night?
Unfriends, for sure!"

"Well," returned Greensheve, "an John come speedily, we shall give a
good account of them. They are not two-score at the outside--I judge so
by the spacing of their sentries--and, taken where they are, lying so
widely, one score would scatter them like sparrows. And yet, Master
Dick, an she be in Sir Daniel's power already, it will little hurt that
she should change into another's. Who should these be?"

"I do suspect the Lord of Shoreby," Dick replied. "When came they?"

"They began to come, Master Dick," said Greensheve, "about the time ye
crossed the wall. I had not lain there the space of a minute ere I
marked the first of the knaves crawling round the corner."

The last light had been already extinguished in the little house when
they were wading in the wash of the breakers, and it was impossible to
predict at what moment the lurking men about the garden wall might make
their onslaught. Of two evils, Dick preferred the least. He preferred
that Joanna should remain under the guardianship of Sir Daniel rather
than pass into the clutches of Lord Shoreby; and his mind was made up,
if the house should be assaulted, to come at once to the relief of the
besieged.

But the time passed, and still there was no movement. From quarter of an
hour to quarter of an hour the same signal passed about the garden wall,
as if the leader desired to assure himself of the vigilance of his
scattered followers; but in every other particular the neighbourhood of
the little house lay undisturbed.

Presently Dick's reinforcements began to arrive. The night was not yet
old before nearly a score of men crouched beside him in the gorse.

Separating these into two bodies, he took the command of the smaller
himself, and entrusted the larger to the leadership of Greensheve.

"Now, Kit," said he to this last, "take me your men to the near angle of
the garden wall upon the beach. Post them strongly, and wait till that
ye hear me falling on upon the other side. It is those upon the
sea-front that I would fain make certain of, for there will be the
leader. The rest will run; even let them. And now, lads, let no man