he moon caught the edges of the water. A great
many vessels were lying at anchor in their ridings, with the dark,
prodigious form of a man-of-war looming up above them in the
moonlight.

There our hero sat for the best part of an hour, smoking his pipe of
tobacco and sipping his grog, and seeing not so much as a single thing
that might concern the note he had received.

It was not far from half an hour after the time appointed in the note,
when a rowboat came suddenly out of the night and pulled up to the
landing place at the foot of the garden above mentioned, and three or
four men came ashore in the darkness. Without saying a word among
themselves they chose a near-by table and, sitting down, ordered rum
and water, and began drinking their grog in silence. They might have
sat there about five minutes, when, by and by, Barnaby True became
aware that they were observing him very curiously; and then almost
immediately one, who was plainly the leader of the party, called out
to him:

"How now, messmate! Won't you come and drink a dram of rum with us?"

"Why, no," says Barnaby, answering very civilly; "I have drunk enough
already, and more would only heat my blood."

"All the same," quoth the stranger, "I think you will come and drink
with us; for, unless I am mistook, you are Mr. Barnaby True, and I am
come here to tell you that the _Royal Sovereign is come in_."

Now I may honestly say that Barnaby True was never more struck aback
in all his life than he was at hearing these words uttered in so
unexpected a manner. He had been looking to hear them under such
different circumstances that, now that his ears heard them addressed
to him, and that so seriously, by a perfect stranger, who, with
others, had thus mysteriously come ashore out of the darkness, he
could scarce believe that his ears heard aright. His heart suddenly
began beating at a tremendous rate, and had he been an older and wiser
man, I do believe he would have declined the adventure, instead of
leaping blindly, as he did, into that of which he could see neither
the beginning nor the ending. But being barely one-and-twenty years of
age, and having an adventurous disposition that would have carried him
into almost anything that possessed a smack of uncertainty or danger
about it, he contrived to say, in a pretty easy tone (though God knows
how it was put on for the occasion):

"Well, then, if that be so, and if the _Royal Sovereign_ is indeed
come in, w