from these, to run to the
nearest medical man."

"Well, well!" sighed the Major. "Then, if the worst come to the
worst and you cannot accompany us, we must rely on the good offices
of the enemy. They have no qualified surgeon, I believe: but the
second lieutenant, young Couch of Polperro, is almost out of his
articles and ready to proceed to Guy's. A clever fellow, too, they
tell me."

"You understand that if I fail you, it will be through no want of
zeal?"

"My friend"--the Major turned on him with a smile at once magnanimous
and tender--"I believe you ask nothing better than to accompany me."

"To the death!" said the Doctor, in a low voice and fervently.
Then, after a pause full of emotion, "Your dispositions are all
taken?"

"All, I believe. Chinn has drawn up a new will for me, which I have
signed, and it lies at this moment in my deed-box. I took the
liberty to appoint you an executor."

"You would not ask me to survive you!" (O Friendship! O exemplars
of a sterner age! O Rome! O Cato!) "Not to mention," went on the
Doctor, "that I must be by five or six years your senior, and in the
ordinary course of events--"

Major Hymen dismissed the ordinary course of events with a wave of
the hand.

"I ask it as a personal favour."

"It is an honour then, and I accede."

"For the rest, I am keeping that fellow Smellie on the _qui vive_.
For three days past he has been promenading the cliffs with his
spy-glass. I would not lightly depreciate any man, but Smellie has
one serious fault--he is ambitious."

"Such men are to be found in every walk of life."

"I fear so. Ambition is like to be Smellie's bane. He is jealous of
sharing any credit with the Preventive crews, and is keeping them
without information. On the other hand he delights in ordering about
a military force; which, in a civilian, is preposterous."

"Quite preposterous."

"The Dragoons, of course, hate working under his orders: but I shall
be surprised if he resist the temptation to call them in and dress
himself in a little brief authority. Further, I have word from
Polperro that he is getting together a company of the Sea Fencibles.
In short, he is playing into our hands."

"But the boats?"

"They are here."

"Here?" The Doctor's eyes grew round with wonder.

The Major swept a hand towards the horizon.

"For two days we have been enjoying a steady southerly breeze.
They are yonder, you may be sure--the three of them: an