y there
could no harm come of one look at that dark and lonely place.

No volition of his own was needed to carry him onwards; wind and
tide did all that. He had merely to keep his place and steer his
little bark up the wide river. He saw against the sky the great
pile of Westminster. He had drifted almost across the river by that
time. He was seated in the bow of the boat, just dipping an oar
from time to time as it slipped along beneath the trees. And now
the moon shone out for a few minutes clear and bright. It did not
shine upon his own craft, gliding so stealthily beneath the bare
trees that fringed the wall of the very house he had come to see;
but it did gleam upon another wherry out in midstream, rowed by a
strong man wrapped in a cloak, and directed straight for the same
spot. Cuthbert started, and caught hold of a bough of a weeping
willow, bringing his boat to a standstill in a place where the
shadow was blackest. He had no wish to be found in this strange
position. He would remain hidden until this other boat had landed
at the steps. He would be hidden well where he was. He had better
be perfectly silent, and so remain.

A sound of voices above his head warned him that he was not the
only watcher, and for a moment he feared that, silent as had been
his movements, his presence had been discovered. But some one spoke
in anxious accents, and in that voice he recognized the clear and
mellow tones of Robert Catesby. He was speaking in a low voice to
some companion.

"If he comes not within a short while, I shall hold that all is
lost. I fear me we did wrong to send him. That letter--that
letter--that luckless letter! who can have been the writer?"

"Tresham, I fear me without doubt, albeit he denied it with such
steadfast boldness. Would to heaven that fickle hound had never
been admitted to our counsels! That was thy doing, Catesby."

"Ay, and terribly do I repent me of it, Winter. I upbraid myself as
bitterly as any can upbraid me for the folly. But hark--listen! I
hear the plash of oars. See, there is a boat! It is he--it is
Fawkes! I know him by his height and his strong action. Heaven be
praised! All cannot yet be lost! Move upwards yet a few paces, and
we will speak to him here alone before we take him within doors to
the others.

"Guido Fawkes! Good Guy, is that verily thou?"

"Verily and in truth, my masters. Has the time seemed long?"

"Terribly long. How foundest thou all?"

"All well--all