ourtesy, to keep it in my stead; and see that
not pleasure, nor pain, tempest, wound, nor pestilence withhold you from
the hour and place, for the welfare of England lieth upon this cast."

"I do soberly take this upon me," said Dick. "In so far as in me lieth,
your purpose shall be done."

"It is good," said the wounded man. "My lord duke shall order you
further, and if ye obey him with spirit and goodwill, then is your
fortune made. Give me the lamp a little nearer to mine eyes, till that I
write these words for you."

He wrote a note "to his worshipful kinsman, Sir John Hamley"; and then a
second, which he left without external superscription.

"This 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_ re-appeared
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 w