as she exclaimed, with a cheery voice, “Oh, his cousin has come!”—­and immediately ran upon the deck to await the approaching party.  There were pleasant smiling faces all around, as the four men came over the sloop’s side; and although the testimony is silent as to the fact, there might have been some little kissing on the occasion.  The new-comer was in a rough dress, and had the exterior of a servant; and our skipper says in his testimony, that “Mrs. Talbot spoke to him in the Irish language”:  very volubly, I have no doubt, and that much was said that was never translated.  When they came to a pause in this conversation, she told Skreene, by way of interpretation, “he need not be uneasy about the stranger’s going on shore, nor delay any longer, as this person had made up his mind to go with them to Maryland.”

So the boat was made fast, the anchor was weighed, the sails were set, and the little sloop bent to the breeze and kissed the wave, as she rounded the headland and stood up the Bay, with Colonel George Talbot encircling with his arm his faithful wife, and with the gallant Cornet Murray sitting at his side.

They had now an additional reason for caution against search.  So Murray ordered the skipper to shape his course over to the eastern shore, and to keep in between the islands and the main.  This is a broad circuit outside of their course; but Roger is promised a reward by Mrs. Talbot, to compensate him for his loss of time; and the skipper is very willing.  They had fetched a compass, as the Scripture phrase is, to the shore of Dorset County, and steered inside of Hooper’s Island, into the month of Hungary River.  Here it was part of the scheme to dismiss the faithful Roger from further service.  With this view they landed on the island and went to Mr. Hooper’s house, where they procured a supply of provisions, and immediately afterwards reembarked,—­having clean forgotten Roger, until they were once more under full sail up the Bay, and too far advanced to turn back!

The deserted skipper bore his disappointment like a Christian; and being asked, on Hungary River, by a friend who met him there, and who gave his testimony before the Council, “What brought him there?” he replied, “He had been left on the island by Madam Talbot.”  And to another, “Where Madam Talbot was?” he answered, “She had gone up the Bay to her own house.”  Then, to a third question, “How he expected his pay?” he said, “He was to have it of Colonel Darnall and Major Sewall; and that Madam Talbot had promised him a hogshead of tobacco extra, for putting ashore at Hooper’s Island.”  The last question was, “What news of Talbot?” and Roger’s answer, “He had not been within twenty miles of him; neither did he know anything about the Colonel” !!  But, on further discourse, he let fall, that “he knew the Colonel never would come to a trial,”—­“that he knew this; but neither man, woman, nor child should know it, but those who knew it already.”