“France!  Pshaw, man, the telegraph would have set every gendarme on the coast on the look-out.  No, no, that would be a poor hope of safety!”

“Where then?”

“Where is the fisherman?” asked Ezra suspiciously, peering out from the door into the darkness.  “No one must know our destination.  We’ll pick up Migg’s ship, the Black Eagle, in the Downs.  She was to have gone down the Thames to-day, and to lie at Gravesend, and then to work round to the Downs, where she will be to-morrow.  It will be a Sunday, so no news can get about.  If we get away with him they will lose all trace of us.  We’ll get him to land up upon the Spanish coast.  I think it will fairly puzzle the police.  No doubt they are watching every station on the line by this time.  I wonder what has become of Burt?”

“I trust that they will hang him,” John Girdlestone cried, with a gleam of his old energy.  “If he had taken the ordinary precaution of making sure who the girl was, this would never have occurred.”

“Don’t throw the blame on him,” said Ezra bitterly.  “Who was it who kept us all up to it whenever we wished to back out?  If it had not been for you, who would have thought of it?”

“I acted for the best,” cried the old man, throwing his hands up with a piteous gesture.  “You should be the last to upbraid me.  It was the dream of leaving you rich and honoured which drove me on.  I was prepared to do anything for that end.”

“You have always excellent intentions,” his son said callously.  “They have a queer way of showing themselves, however.  Look out, here’s Sampson!”

As he spoke they heard the crunching of the fisherman’s heavy boots on the shingle, and he looked in, with his ruddy face all shining with the salt water.

“We’re all ready now, sirs,” he said.  “Jarge and I will get into our oil duds, and then we can lock up the shop.  It’ll have to take care of itself until we come back.”

The two gentlemen walked down to the edge of the sea.  There was a little dinghy there, and the boat was anchored a couple of hundred yards off.  They could just make out the loom of her through the darkness, and see her shadowy spars, dipping, rising, and falling with the wash of the waves.  To right and left spread the long white line of thundering foam, as though the ocean were some great beast of prey which was gnashing its glistening teeth at them.  The gale had partially died away, but there still came fitful gusts from the south-west, and the thick clouds overhead were sweeping in a majestic procession across the sky, and falling like a dark cataract over the horizon, showing that up there at least there was no lull in the tempest.  It was bitterly cold, and both men buttoned up their coats and slapped their hands against each other to preserve their warmth.

After some little delay, Sampson and his son came down from the hut with a lantern in each of their hands.  They had locked the door behind them, which showed that they were ready for a final start.  By the lights which they carried it could be seen that they were dressed in yellow suits of oilskin and sou’wester hats, as if prepared for a wet night.