is is for the duke," he said. "The word is 'England and Edward,' and
the counter, 'England and York.'"

"And Joanna, my lord?" asked Dick.

"Nay, ye must get Joanna how ye can," replied the baron. "I have named
you for my choice in both these letters; but ye must get her for
yourself, boy. I have tried, as ye see here before you, and have lost my
life. More could no man do."

By this time the wounded man began to be very weary; and Dick, putting
the precious papers in his bosom, bade him be of good cheer, and left
him to repose.

The day was beginning to break, cold and blue, with flying squalls of
snow. Close under the lee of the _Good Hope_, the coast lay in alternate
rocky headlands and sandy bays; and farther inland the wooded hill-tops
of Tunstall showed along the sky. Both the wind and the sea had gone
down; but the vessel wallowed deep, and scarce rose upon the waves.

Lawless was still fixed at the rudder; and by this time nearly all the
men had crawled on deck, and were now gazing, with blank faces, upon the
inhospitable coast.

"Are we going ashore?" asked Dick.

"Ay," said Lawless, "unless we get first to the bottom."

And just then the ship rose so languidly to meet a sea, and the water
weltered so loudly in her hold, that Dick involuntarily seized the
steersman by the arm.

"By the mass!" cried Dick, as the bows of the _Good Hope_ reappeared
above the foam, "I thought we had foundered, indeed; my heart was at my
throat."

In the waist, Greensheve, Hawksley, and the better men of both companies
were busy breaking up the deck to build a raft; and to these Dick joined
himself, working the harder to drown the memory of his predicament. But,
even as he worked, every sea that struck the poor ship, and every one of
her dull lurches, as she tumbled wallowing among the waves, recalled him
with a horrid pang to the immediate proximity of death.

Presently, looking up from his work, he saw that they were close in
below a promontory; a piece of ruinous cliff, against the base of which
the sea broke white and heavy, almost overplumbed the deck; and, above
that, again, a house appeared, crowning a down.

Inside the bay the seas ran gaily, raised the _Good Hope_ upon their
foam-flecked shoulders, carried her beyond the control of the steersman,
and in a moment dropped her, with a great concussion, on the sand, and
began to break over her half-mast high, and roll her to and fro. Another
great wave followed,