ugh to be bringing us back."

The men bent to the clumsy oars, and the boat slid down the inlet, and
passed under the beam of the French sloop, which lay moored farther
along the jetty. Not a sign of life appeared on deck as they passed;
the ship seemed to be deserted. Half a dozen strokes carried the boat
beyond view of it, and the little party were alone on the bosom of the
water, that lay rocking smoothly between its unseen banks. Some minutes
were spent in stout rowing, and the oily swell began to grow longer and
slower. They were near the mouth of the inlet, and abreast of the
east-and-west-running shore of the bay. Smoothly as the sea lapped the
beach under the mist, the boat began to rise and fall on the Atlantic
rollers.

"Tis more deceitful than a pretty colleen," O'Sullivan Og said, "is the
sea-fog, bad cess to it! My own father was lost in it. Will you be
seeing her, boys?"

"Ye'll not see her till ye touch her!" one of the rowers answered.

"And the tide running?" the other said. "Save us from that same!"

"She's farther out by three gunshots!" struck in a firelock-man. "We'll
be drifting back, ye thieves of the world, if ye sit staring there!
Pull, an' we'll be inshore an' ye know it."

For some minutes the men pulled steadily onwards, while one of the
passengers, apprised that their destination was the Spanish war-vessel
which had landed Cammock and the Bishop, felt anything but eager to
reach it. A Spanish war-ship meant imprisonment and hardship without
question, possibly the Inquisition, persecution, and death. When the
men lay at last on their oars, and swore that they must have passed the
ship, and they would go no farther, he alone listened indifferently,
nay, felt a faint hope born in him.

"'Tis a black Protestant fog!" O'Sullivan cried. "Where'll we be, I
wonder?"

"Sure, ye can make no mistake," one answered. "The wind's light off the
land."

"We'll be pulling back, lads."

"That's the word."

The men put the boat about, a little sulkily, and started on the return
journey. The sound of barking dogs and crowing cocks came off the land
with that clearness which all sounds assume in a fog. Suddenly Colonel
John, crouching in the bow, where was scant room for Bale and himself,
saw a large shape loom before him. Involuntarily he uttered a warning
cry, O'Sullivan echoed it, the men tried to hold the boat. In doing
this, however, one man was quicker than the other, the boat turned
broadsi