as soon as Capper had departed, "let thou and I go round
about the garden in a wide circuit. I would fain see whether thine eyes
betrayed thee."

Keeping well outwards from the wall, and profiting by every height and
hollow, they passed about two sides, beholding nothing. On the third
side the garden wall was built close upon the beach, and to preserve the
distance necessary to their purpose, they had to go some way down upon
the sands. Although the tide was still pretty far out, the surf was so
high, and the sands so flat, that at each breaker a great sheet of froth
and water came careering over the expanse, and Dick and Greensheve made
this part of their inspection wading, now to the ankles, and now as deep
as to the knees, in the salt and icy waters of the German Ocean.

Suddenly, against the comparative whiteness of the garden wall, the
figure of a man was seen, like a faint Chinese shadow, violently
signalling with both arms. As he dropped again to the earth, another
arose a little farther on and repeated the same performance. And so,
like a silent watch word, these gesticulations made the round of the
beleaguered garden.

"They keep good watch," Dick whispered.

"Let us back to land, good master," answered Greensheve. "We stand here
too open; for, look ye, when the seas break heavy and white out there
behind us, they shall see us plainly against the foam."

"Ye speak sooth," returned Dick. "Ashore with us, right speedily."

CHAPTER II--A SKIRMISH IN THE DARK

Thoroughly drenched and chilled, the two adventurers returned to their
position in the gorse.

"I pray Heaven 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, Mas