Suddenly, against the comparative whiteness of the
garden wall, the figure of a man was seen, like a
faint Chinese shadow, violently signalling with both
arms. As he dropped again to the earth, another
arose a little farther on and repeated the same performance.
And so, like a silent watch word, these gesticulations
made the round of the beleaguered garden.
“They keep good watch,” Dick whispered.
“Let us back to land, good master,” answered
Greensheve. “We stand here too open; for,
look ye, when the seas break heavy and white out there
behind us, they shall see us plainly against the foam.”
“Ye speak sooth,” returned Dick.
“Ashore with us, right speedily.”
Thoroughly drenched and chilled, the two adventurers
returned to their position in the gorse.
“I pray Heaven that Capper make good speed!”
said Dick. “I vow a candle to St. Mary
of Shoreby if he come before the hour!”
“Y’ are in a hurry, Master Dick?”
asked Greensheve.
“Ay, good fellow,” answered Dick; “for
in that house lieth my lady, whom I love, and who
should these be that lie about her secretly by night?
Unfriends, for sure!”
“Well,” returned Greensheve, “an
John come speedily, we shall give a good account of
them. They are not two score at the outside—I
judge so by the spacing of their sentries—and,
taken where they are, lying so widely, one score would
scatter them like sparrows. And yet, Master Dick,
an she be in Sir Daniel’s power already, it
will little hurt that she should change into another’s.
Who should these be?”
“I do suspect the Lord of Shoreby,” Dick
replied. “When came they?”
“They began to come, Master Dick,” said
Greensheve, “about the time ye crossed the wall.
I had not lain there the space of a minute ere I
marked the first of the knaves crawling round the corner.”
The last light had been already extinguished in the
little house when they were wading in the wash of
the breakers, and it was impossible to predict at
what moment the lurking men about the garden wall
might make their onslaught. Of two evils, Dick
preferred the least. He preferred that Joanna
should remain under the guardianship of Sir Daniel
rather than pass into the clutches of Lord Shoreby;
and his mind was made up, if the house should be assaulted,
to come at once to the relief of the besieged.
But the time passed, and still there was no movement.
From quarter of an hour to quarter of an hour the
same signal passed about the garden wall, as if the
leader desired to assure himself of the vigilance
of his scattered followers; but in every other particular
the neighbourhood of the little house lay undisturbed.
Presently Dick’s reinforcements began to arrive.
The night was not yet old before nearly a score of
men crouched beside him in the gorse.
