straight home to Stimcoe’s—­do anything but lay him on to my trail by comin’ back to tell me.  Understand?  There, now, hark to the town clock chimin’ below there!  Six o’clock it is—­four bells.  If you’re not back agen by seven I shall know what’s happened an’ take steps accordin’.  An’ you’ll know that I’m on my way to your father by another tack.  ‘What tack?’ says you.  ‘Never you mind,’ says I. If the worst comes to the worst, old Dan Coffin has a shot left in his locker.”

I took the key and ran.  The alley where Captain Branscome lodged lay a gunshot on this side of the Market Strand; and while I ran I kept—­ as the saying is—­my eyes skinned for a sight of the enemy.  The coast, however, was clear.

But at Captain Branscome’s door a wholly unexpected disappointment awaited me.  It was locked, and I had not hammered on its shining brass knocker before a neighbouring housewife put forth her head from a window in the gathering dusk, and informed me that the captain was not at home.  He had gone out early in the afternoon, and left his doorkey with her, saying that he was off on a visit, and would not return before to-morrow afternoon at earliest.  For a moment I was tempted to disobey Captain Danny’s injunctions, and fetch the money myself, or at least make a bold attempt for it; but, recollecting how earnestly he had charged me, and how cheerfully at the last he had assured me that he had still a shot in his locker, I turned and mounted the hill again, albeit dejectedly.

The moon was rising as I climbed over the stile into the footpath, and, recognizing my footstep, the old man came forward to meet me, out of the shadow on the western side of the windmill, to which he had shifted his watch.

My ill-success, depressing enough to me, he took very cheerfully.

“I was afraid,” said he, “you might be foolin’ off for the money on your own account.  Gone on a visit, has he?  Well, you can hand him the key to-morrow, with my message.  An’ now I’ll tell you my next notion.  The St. Mawes packet”—­this was the facetious name given to a small cutter which plied in those days between Falmouth and the small village of St. Mawes across the harbour—­“the St. Mawes packet is due to start at seven-thirty.  I won’t risk boardin’ her at Market Strand, but pick up a boat at Arwennack, an’ row out to hail her as she’s crossin’.  She’ll pick me up easy, wi’ this wind; but if she don’t, I’ll get the waterman to pull me right across.  Bogue, the landlord of The Lugger over there, knows me well enough to lend me ten shillin’, an’ wi’ that I can follow the road through Tregony to St. Austell, an’ hire a lift maybe.”

I could not but applaud the plan.  The route he proposed cut off a corner, led straight to Minden Cottage, and was at the same time the one on which he was least likely to be tracked.  We descended the hill together, keeping to the dark side of the road.  At the foot of the hill we parted, with the understanding that I was to run straight home to Stimcoe’s, and explain my absence at locking-up—­or, as Mr. Stimcoe preferred to term it, “names-calling”—­as best I might.