y bustled him away, choking almost from a reluctance that he dared
not show. The thing was unfortunate; but after all not beyond remedy.
The escape was set for midnight, and he should easily be back by then.
He mounted the horse that Kent procured him, intending to make all
haste.

"How shall I reenter the stockade, sir?" he enquired at parting.

"You'll not reenter it," said Bishop. "When they've done with you at
Government House, they may find a kennel for you there until morning."

Peter Blood's heart sank like a stone through water.

"But..." he began.

"Be off, I say. Will you stand there talking until dark? His excellency
is waiting for you." And with his cane Colonel Bishop slashed the
horse's quarters so brutally that the beast bounded forward all but
unseating her rider.

Peter Blood went off in a state of mind bordering on despair. And
there was occasion for it. A postponement of the escape at least until
to-morrow night was necessary now, and postponement must mean the
discovery of Nuttall's transaction and the asking of questions it would
be difficult to answer.

It was in his mind to slink back in the night, once his work at
Government House were done, and from the outside of the stockade make
known to Pitt and the others his presence, and so have them join him
that their project might still be carried out. But in this he reckoned
without the Governor, whom he found really in the thrall of a severe
attack of gout, and almost as severe an attack of temper nourished by
Blood's delay.

The doctor was kept in constant attendance upon him until long after
midnight, when at last he was able to ease the sufferer a little by a
bleeding. Thereupon he would have withdrawn. But Steed would not hear of
it. Blood must sleep in his own chamber to be at hand in case of need.
It was as if Fate made sport of him. For that night at least the escape
must be definitely abandoned.

Not until the early hours of the morning did Peter Blood succeed in
making a temporary escape from Government House on the ground that he
required certain medicaments which he must, himself, procure from the
apothecary.

On that pretext, he made an excursion into the awakening town, and
went straight to Nuttall, whom he found in a state of livid panic. The
unfortunate debtor, who had sat up waiting through the night, conceived
that all was discovered and that his own ruin would be involved. Peter
Blood quieted his fears.

"It will be f