"Priscilla," he said, "I wish we hadn't come. I ought not to have come when Uncle Lucius has forbidden you to use this boat."

"Oh," said Priscilla, "don't you fret Father doesn't really mind a bit. He only pretends to, has to, you know, on account of Aunt Juliet He knows jolly well that I can sail the Tortoise, any one could."

Frank could not; but Priscilla's tone comforted him a little. Yet his conscience was ill at ease.

"But Miss Lentaigne," he said, "your Aunt Juliet——"

"She'll object, all right, of course," said Priscilla. "If she knew where we are this minute she'd be dead, cock sure that we'd be drowned. She'd probably spend the afternoon planning out nice warm ways of wrapping up our clammy corpses when she got them back. But she doesn't know, so that's all right."

"She will know, this evening. We shall have to tell her."

On one point Frank was entirely decided. Priscilla should neither lure nor drive him into any kind of deceit about the expedition. But Priscilla had no such intention.

"We'll tell her right enough," she said, "when we get home. She'll be pretty mad, of course, inwardly; but she can't say much on account of her principles."

"I don't see what her principles have to do with it."

"Don't you? Then you must be rather stupid. Can't you see that if you haven't really got a sprained ankle, but only believe you have, and wouldn't have it if you believed you hadn't, then we shouldn't really be drowned, supposing we were drowned, I mean, which, of course, we're not going to be—if we believed we weren't drowned? And Aunt Juliet, with her principles, would be bound to believe we weren't, even if we were. We've only got to put it to her that way and she won't have a ghost of a grievance left. It's the simplest form of Christian Science. But in any case, whatever silliness Aunt Juliet may indulge in, we were simply bound to have the Tortoise today. It's a matter of duty. I don't see how you can get around that, Cousin Frank, no matter how you argue."

Frank did not want to get behind his duty. He had been brought up with a very high regard for the word, If it had been clearly shown him that it was his duty to take an ocean voyage in the Tortoise, with Priscilla as leader of the expedition, he would have bidden a long farewell to his friends and gone forth cheerfully. But he did not see that this particular sail, which seemed, indeed, little better than a humiliating, though agreeable, act of truancy, could possibly be sheltered under the name of duty. Priscilla enlightened him.

"I daresay you don't know," she said, "that there is a German spy at the present moment making a chart of this bay. We are hunting him."

There is something intensely stimulating to every healthy mind in the idea of hunting a spy. No prefect in the world, no master even, not Mr. Dupre himself, not the remote divine head-master in the calm Elysium of his garden, could have escaped a thrill at the mention of such a sport. Frank was conscious of a sudden relapse from the serenity of the grown man's common sense. For an instant he became a normal schoolboy.

"Rot!" he said. "What spy?"

"It's not rot," said Priscilla. "You've read 'The Riddle of the Sands,' I suppose. You must have. Well, that's exactly what he's at, mapping out mud-banks and things so as to be able to run a masked flotilla of torpedo boats in and out when the time comes. There was one of the same lot caught the other day sketching a fortification in Lough Swilly. Father read it to me out of a newspaper."

Frank had seen a report of that capture. German spies have of late, been appearing with disquieting frequency. They are met with in the most unlikely places. Frank was a little shaken in his scepticism.

"What makes you say there's a German spy?" he said

"I saw him. So did Peter Walsh. So did Joseph Antony Kinsella. You heard Peter Walsh talking about him this morning. I saw him yesterday. I was bathing at the time and he ran his boat on a rock off the point of Delginish. If it hadn't been for me he'd have been there still, only drowned, of course, for his boat floated away from him. I wish now that I'd left him there, but, of course, I didn't know at the time that he was a spy. That idea only came to me afterwards. I say, Cousin Frank, wouldn't it be absolutely spiffing if it turned out that he really was?"

It was impossible for any one to deny that such a thing would be spiffing in the very highest possible degree.

"If he is," said Priscilla, "and I don't see any reason why he shouldn't—anyhow it's jolly good sport to pretend—and if he is, it's our plain duty to hunt him down at any risk. Sylvia Courtney says that Wordsworth's 'Ode to Duty' is quite the most thrillingly impressive poem in the whole 'Golden Treasury' so you won't want to go back on it."

Frank's prize had been won for Greek Iambics, not for English literature. He was not in a position to discuss the value of Wordsworth's "Ode to Duty" as a guide to conduct in ordinary life.

"My plan," said Priscilla, "is to begin at the south of the bay and work across to the north, investigating every island until we light on the one where he is. That's the reason I had to take the Tortoise. The Blue Wanderer wouldn't have done it for us. She won't go to windward. But the Tortoise is a racing boat. Father bought her cheap at Kingstown because she never won any races, which is the reason why he called her the Tortoise. But she can sail faster than Flanagan's old boat, anyhow. And that's the one which the spy has got."

Frank was not inclined to discuss the appropriateness of the Tortoise's new name. He was just beginning to recover from the feeling of bewildered annoyance induced by the sudden introduction of Wordsworth's poem into the conversation.

"But what makes you say he's a spy?" he said. "I know there are spies, and I saw about the capture of that one in Lough Swilly. But why should this man be one?"

"I don't say he is," said Priscilla. "All I say is that until we've hunted him down we can't possibly be sure that he isn't. You never can be sure about anything until you've actually tried it. And, anyway, what else can he be? You can't deny that there's some mystery about him. Remember what Peter Walsh said about his looking as innocent as a child. That's the way spies always look. Besides, I don't think his clothes really belonged to him. I could see that at a glance. He had a pair of white flannel trousers with creases down the fronts of the legs, quite as swagger as yours, if not swaggerer, and a white sweater. He didn't look a bit comfortable in them, not as if they were the kind of clothes he was accustomed to wear. That's Rossmore head on the left there, Cousin Frank. He's not there. I didn't expect he would be, and he isn't. I don't expect he's in that bay to the southwest of it either. But we'll just run in a bit and make sure."

The breeze had freshened a little, and the Tortoise made good way through the calm water. Frank began to feel some little trust in Priscilla. She handled the boat with an air of confidence which was reassuring. His conscience was troubling him less than it did. There is nothing in the world equal to sailing as a means of quieting anxious consciences. A man may be suffering mental agonies from the recollection of some cruel and cold-blooded murder which he happens to have committed. On land his life would be a burden to him. But let him go down to the sea in a small white sailed ship, and in forty-eight hours or less, he will have ceased to feel any remorse for his victim. This may be the reason why all Protestant nations are maritime powers. Having denied themselves the orthodox anaesthetic of the confessional, these peoples have been obliged to take to the sea as a means of preventing their consciences from harrying them. Driven forth across the waves by the clamorous importunity of the voice within, they, of very necessity, acquire a certain skill in the management of boats, a skill which sooner or later leads to the burdensome possession of a navy and so to maritime importance. It is interesting to see how this curious law works out in quite modern times.

The Italian navy is now considerable, but it has only become so since the people were driven to the sea as a consequence of the anti-clerical feeling which led them to desert the confessional. It is quite possible that the Portuguese, having in their new Republic developed a strong antipathy to sacraments and so laid up for themselves a future of spiritual disquiet, may see their ancient maritime glories revived, and in seeking relief beyond the mouth of the Tagus from the gnawings of their consciences, may give birth to some reincarnation of Vasco da Gama or Prince Henry, the Navigator.

"I don't think," said Priscilla, looking round her searchingly, "that he's anywhere in this bay. How's your ankle?"

"It's quite comfortable," said Frank.

"I asked," said Priscilla, "because in order to get out of the bay I shall have to jibe, and that means that you've got to hop across the centreboard case."

Frank had not the least idea of what happens when a small boat jibes. He intended to ask for information, but was not given any opportunity. The boom, which had hitherto behaved with dignity and self-possession, suddenly swung across the boat with such swiftness that he had no time to duck his head to avoid it. His straw hat, struck on the brim, was swept over the side of the boat. He found himself thrown down against the gunwale, while a quantity of cold water poured over his legs. He grasped the centreboard case, the nearest stable thing at hand, and pulled himself up again into the middle of the boat. Priscilla, a good deal tangled in a writhing rope, was struggling past the tiller to the windward side.

"What's happened?" asked Frank.

"Jibed all standing," said Priscilla. "I didn't mean to, of course. I must have been sailing her by the lee. But it's all right. We didn't ship more than a bucketful. I say, I'm rather sorry about your hat; but that's a rotten kind of hat in a boat anyway. Would you mind getting up to windward? I've got to luff her a bit and she'll heel over."

"Is it gone?"

"What? Oh, the hat. Yes, quite. We couldn't get it without jibing again."

"Don't let us do that," said Frank, "if we can help it.

"I won't. But do get up to windward. That is to say if your ankle's not too bad. I must luff a bit or we'll go ashore. The water's getting very shallow."

Frank scrambled over the centreboard case and bumped down on the floor boards on the windward side of the boat Priscilla pushed over the tiller and began to haul vigorously on the main sheet The Tortoise swept round, heeled over and rushed through the water on a broad reach. The wind, so it seemed to Frank, began to blow much harder than before. He clung to the weather stay and watched the bubbling water tear past within an inch or two of the lower gunwale. A sudden spasm of extreme nervousness seized him. He looked anxiously at Priscilla. She seemed to be entirely calm and self-possessed. His self-respect reasserted itself. He remembered that she was merely a girl. He set his teeth and determined to show no sign of fear. Gradually the exhilaration of the motion, the coolness of the breeze through his hair, the dancing, impulsive rush of the boat, and the shining white of the sail in front of him conquered his qualms. He began to enjoy himself as he had never in his life enjoyed himself before.

"I say, Priscilla," he said, "this is fine."

"Topping," said Priscilla.

The feel of the cricket ball caught clean in the centre of the bat, sent in one clear flight to square leg across the boundary line, is glorious. Frank knew the exultation of such moments. The dash across the goal line from a swiftly taken pass is a thing to live for. Frank, as a fast three-quarter back, knew that too. But this tearing of a heeling boat through bubbling green water became to him, when he got over the first terror of it, a delirious joy.

"That's Inishminna ahead of us to windward," said Priscilla. "Flanagan lives there, who hired him the old boat. He might be there, but he isn't. I can see the whole slope of the island. We'll slip under the lee of the end of it past Illaunglos. It's a likely enough island."

Frank suddenly remembered that they were in pursuit of a German spy. The remainder of his scepticism forsook him. Amid such surroundings, with the singing of the wind and the gurgling swish of the flying boat in his ears, any adventure seemed possible. The prosaic limitations of ordinary life dropped off from him. Only it seemed a pity to find the spy, since finding him would stop their sailing.

"I say, Priscilla," he said. "Don't let us bother about the old spy. Let's go on sailing."

"Just hunker down a bit," said Priscilla, "and look under the foot of the sail. I can't see to leeward. Is there anything like a tent on that island?"

Frank curled himself into a cramped and difficult attitude. He peered under the sail and made his report.

"There's nothing there," he said, "except three bullocks. But I can only see two sides of the island."

"We'll open the north side in a minute," said Priscilla. "He can't be at the west end of it, for it is all bluff and boulders. If he isn't on the north shore he's not there at all.

Frank twisted himself again into the bottom of the boat, and peeped under the sail. The north shore of Illaunglos held no tent.

"Good," said Priscilla. "Well stand on The next island is Inishark. He may be there. There's a well on it, and he'd naturally want to camp somewhere within reach of water."

Frank, still curled up beside the centreboard case, gazed under the sail at Inishark. The boat, swaying and dipping in a still freshening breeze, sped on.

"Is there any large white stone on the ridge of the island?" he asked.

"No," said Priscilla. "There isn't a white stone of any size in the whole bay. It's most likely a sheep."

"It's not a sheep. Nobody ever saw a sheep with a back that went up into a point. I believe it's the top of a tent. Steer for it, Priscilla."

Frank was aglow with excitement. The sailing intoxicated him. The sight of the triangular apex of the tent put himself beside himself.

"Turn the boat, Priscilla. Go down to the island."

Priscilla was cooler.

"We'll hold on a minute," she said, "and make sure. There's no use running all that way down to leeward until we're certain. We'd only have to beat up again."

"It is a tent," said Frank. "I can see now. There are two tents."

Priscilla caught his excitement She knelt on the floor boards, crooked her elbow over the tiller, leaned over the side of the boat and stared under the sail at the island.

"That's him," she said. "Now, Cousin Frank, we'll have to jibe again to get down there. Do you think you can be a bit nippier in getting over the centreboard than you were last time. It's blowing harder, and it won't do to upset. You very nearly had us over before."

Frank was too excited to notice that she now put the whole blame of the sudden violence of the last jibe on him. Thinking over the matter afterwards, he remembered that she had apologised at the time for her own bad steering. Now she wanted to hold his awkwardness responsible for what might have been a disaster.

"All right," he said, "All right I'll do whatever you tell me."

"I won't risk it," said Priscilla. "You'd mean to do all right, but you wouldn't when the time came. That ankle of yours, you know. After all, it's just as easy to run her up into the wind and stay her."

"There's a man at the door of one of the tents looking at us through a pair of glasses," said Frank.

"Let him," said Priscilla.

She was hauling in the main sheet as the boat swept up into the wind.

"Now, Cousin Frank, ready about. You must slack off the jib sheet and haul down the other. That thin rope at your hand. Yes, that's it."

The meaning of this new manoeuvre was dim and uncertain to Frank. He grasped the rope indicated to him and then heard a noise as if some one at the bottom of the sea, an angry mermaid perhaps, was striking the keel of the boat hard with a hammer.

"She's touching," said Priscilla. "Up centreboard, quick."

Frank gazed at her in pained bewilderment. He had not the least idea of what she wanted him to do. The knocking at the boat's bottom became more frequent and violent. Priscilla gave the main sheet a turn round a cleat and stretched forward, holding the tiller with her left hand. She grasped a rope, one out of a tangled web of wet ropes, and tugged. The knocking ceased. The boat swept up into the wind. There was a sudden arrest of movement, a violent list over, a dart forward, a soft crunching sound, and then a dead stop.

"Bother," said Priscilla, "we're aground."

She sprang overboard at once, stood knee deep in the water, and tugged at the stern of the boat The centreboard, when she dropped its rope, fell to the bottom of its case, caught in the mud under the boat, and anchored her immovably. Priscilla tugged in vain.

"It's no good," she said at last, "and the tide's ebbing. We're here for hours and hours. I hope you didn't hurt your ankle, Cousin Frank, during that fray."



CHAPTER VII

"That fellow is still looking at us through his glasses," said Frank.

"Can't help it," said Priscilla, "If it amuses him he can go on looking at us for the next four hours."

She gathered her dripping skirt round her and stepped into the boat

"Sylvia Courtney," she said, "told me last term that her favorite poem in English literature, is 'Gray's Elegy' on account of it's being so full of calm. Sometimes I think that Sylvia Courtney is rather a beast."

"She must be a rotter," said Frank, "if she said that."

"All the same, there's no use our fretting ourselves into a fuss. We can't get out of this unless we had the wings of a dove, so we may as well take the sails off the boat."

She climbed across Frank, loosed the halyard and brought the lug down into the boat with a sudden run. Frank was buried in the folds of it After some struggling he got his head out and breathed freely.

"I say, Priscilla," he said, "why didn't you tell me you were going to do that?"

Priscilla was gathering the foresail in her arms.

"I thought you knew," she said.

"I didn't know the beastly thing was going to come down on my head."

"That fellow on the island," said Priscilla, "is getting down his tents and seems to be in a mighty hurry. He's got a woman helping him. Do you think she could be a female spy? There are such things. They carry secret ciphers sewn into their stays and other things of that kind."

"I don't believe they're spies at all," said Frank, who was feeling dishevelled and uncomfortable after his struggle with the sail.

"Anyhow they seem pretty keen on getting away from Inishark. Just look at them."

There was no doubt that the people on the island were doing their best to strike their camp as quickly as possible. In their hurry they stumbled over guy ropes, got the fly sheet of one of their tents badly tangled round a packing case, and made the matter worse by trying to free it without proper consideration.

"Let them fuss," said Priscilla. "We can't help it if they do get away. If your ankle isn't too bad we might as well have lunch. You grub out the food when I get off my shoes and stockings, I'm a bit damp about the legs."

Frank felt under the thwart through which the mast was stepped and drew out one by one the parcel of macaroons, the tongue, the tin of peaches and the bottles. Priscilla wrung out her stockings over the stern of the boat and then hung them on the gunwale to dry. She propped her shoes up against the stern where they would get as much breeze as possible.

"I wish," said Frank, "that we'd thought of getting some bread."

"Why? Don't you like macaroons?"

"I like them all right, but they don't go very well with tongue."

"We'll begin with the tongue, then, and keep the macaroons till afterwards. Hand it over."

She took a rowlock and shattered the jar which held the tongue. She succeeded in throwing some of the broken glass overboard. A good deal more of it stuck in the tongue.

"What I generally do," she said, "when I'm out in the Blue Wanderer by myself and happen to have a tongue, which isn't often on account of their being so beastly expensive—but whenever I have I simply bite bits off it as I happen to want them. But I know that's not polite. If you prefer it, Cousin Frank, you can gouge out a chunk or two with your knife before I gnaw it."

This seemed to Frank a good suggestion. He got out his knife.

"Sylvia Courtney is always frightfully polite," said Priscilla.

Frank hesitated. The recollection of Sylvia Courtney's appreciation of Wordsworth's "Ode to Duty" and her fondness for "Gray's Elegy" for the sake of its calm came to him. He would not be classed with her. He put his knife back into his pocket and bit a small bit off the tongue. Then he leaned over the side of the boat and spat out a good deal of broken glass. He also spat out some blood.

"That seems to be rather a glassy bit you've got," said Priscilla. "Are you cut?"

"A little," said Frank, "but it doesn't matter."

Priscilla bit off a large mouthful and handed the tongue back to Frank. Her cheeks bulged a good deal, but she chewed without any appearance of discomfort. Frank had read in books about "the call of the wild." He now, for the first time, felt the lust for savage life. He took the tongue, tore off a fragment with his teeth, and discovered as he ate it, that he was exceedingly hungry.

"Your lemonade bottle," he said, a few minutes later, "has one of those glass stoppers in it instead of a cork. How shall I open it?"

"Shank of a rowlock," said Priscilla. "Those spies on the island have got their tents down at last They're packing up now."

Frank opened the lemonade bottle and then glanced at the island. The female spy was packing a holdall. Her companion was staggering down the beach towards the place where Flanagan's old boat lay high and dry on her side. He carried the packing case on his shoulder. Priscilla, tilting her head back, drank the lemonade from its bottle in large gulps. Then she opened the parcel of biscuits and munched a macaroon contentedly.

"It's dashed annoying," said Frank, "having to sit here and watch them escape, just as we had them cornered too."

The inside of his lip hurt him a good deal while he ate. He wanted to grumble about something; but the fear of being compared to Sylvia Courtney kept him silent about the broken glass. Priscilla took another macaroon.

"We were doing Wordsworth's 'Excursion' last term," she said, "in English literature, and there's a long tract of it called 'Despondency Corrected.' I wish I had it here now. It's just what would do you good."

Frank nibbled a biscuit with his eyes on the island. The man was carrying down a bundle of rugs to the boat. The woman followed him with one of the tents. Then they went back together to their camping ground and collected a number of small objects which were scattered about. Frank became desperate.

"Priscilla," he said, "don't you think you could wade across to that island. There's only about an inch and a half of water round the boat now. I'd do it myself if it wasn't for this infernal ankle. I simply can't walk."

"I could," said Priscilla, "and what's more, I would, only that there's a deep channel between us and them. If I'd jibed that time instead of trying to stay her I should have kept in the channel and not run on to this bank. I knew it was here all right, but I forgot it just at the moment. That's the worst of moments. They simply make one forget things, however hard one tries not to. I daresay you've noticed that."

Frank had as a matter of fact noticed this peculiarity of moments very often. It had turned up in the course of his experience both on cricket and football fields. But it seemed to him that the consequences of being entrapped by it were much more serious in sailing boats than elsewhere. He was so far from blaming Priscilla for the plight of the Tortoise that he felt very grateful to her for not blaming him. His moment had come when she gave him the order about the centreboard. Then not only memory, but all power of coherent thought had deserted him.

"Let's have at the Californian peaches," said Priscilla. "But we'd better eat a bit slower now that the first pangs of hunger are allayed. If we hurry up too much we'll have no food left soon and we have absolutely nothing else to do except to eat until five o'clock this afternoon. We can't expect to get off before that."

The spies packed their belongings into Flanagan's old boat and then set to work to push her down to the sea. Frank, with the point of the opener driven through the top of the peach tin, paused to watch them. They shoved and pulled vainly. The boat remained where she was. Frank began to hope that they, too, might have to wait for the rising tide. They sat down on a large stone and consulted together. Then they took everything out of the boat and tried pushing and pulling her again. Her weight was still too great for them. They moved her forward in short jerks, but each time they moved her the keel at her stern buried itself deeper in the soft mud. They sat down, evidently somewhat exhausted, and had another consultation. Then the man got the oars and laid them out as rollers. He lifted the boat's stern on to the first of them.

"I thought," said Priscilla, "that they'd hit on that dodge sooner or later. Now they'll get on a bit. Go on scalping the peach tin, Cousin Frank."

The peaches had been cut in half by the kindly Californian who preserved them and a half peach fits, with a little squeezing, into any mouth of ordinary size. Priscilla and Frank fished them out with their fingers and ate them. Some juice, but considering the circumstances very little, dripped down the front of Frank's white flannel coat, the glorious crimson bound coat of the first eleven. He did not care in the least. He had lapsed hopelessly. No urchin in the lower school, brewing cocoa over a form room fire, ladling out condensed milk with the blade of a penknife, would have been more dead to the decencies of life than this degenerate hero of the lower sixth.

"They're getting the boat down," said Priscilla, swallowing a lump of peach. "Do you think that you could throw stones far enough to hit them when they get out into the channel? I'd grub up the stones for you. We might frighten them back that way."

Frank had won second prize in the sports at the end of the Easter term for throwing the cricket ball. He looked across the stretch of water and judged the distance carefully.

"No," he said, regretfully, "I couldn't."

"That's a pity," said Priscilla, "for I can't, either. I never could shy worth tuppence. Curious, isn't it? Hardly any girls can."

The spies had got old Flanagan's boat down to the water's edge. They went back to the place where she had lain first. By a series of laborious portages they got all their goods down to the beach and packed them into the boat.

"They're off now," said Frank, regretfully.

"I wouldn't be too sure," said Priscilla. "That fellow's an extraordinary ass with a boat."

Her optimism was well founded. By shoving hard the spies ran their boat into the water. The lady spy stopped at the brink. The man, with reckless indifference to wet feet, followed the boat, still shoving. It happens that the shore of the north side of Inishark shelves very rapidly into the deep channel. The boat floated suddenly, and urged by the violence of the last shove, slid rapidly from the shore. The man grasped at her. His fingers slid along the gunwale. He plunged forward knee-deep, snatched at the retreating bow, missed it, stumbled and fell headlong into the water. The boat floated free and swung into the channel on the tide.

Priscilla leaped up excitedly.

"Now they're done," she said. "They're far worse stuck than we are."

"Oh, do look at him," said Frank, "Did you ever see anything so funny?"

The man staggered to his feet and floundered towards the shore, squeezing the salt water from his eyes with his knuckles.

"Of course, I'm sorry for the poor beast in a way," said Priscilla, "but I can't help feeling that it jolly well serves him right. Oh, look at them now!"

She laughed convulsively. The scene was sufficiently ridiculous. The spy stood dripping forlornly, on the shore. The lady dabbed at various parts of his clothing with her pocket-handkerchief. Flanagan's old boat, now fairly in mid-channel, bobbed cheerfully along on the ebbing tide.

"I'd give a lot this minute," said Priscilla, "for a pair of glasses. I can't think why I was such a fool as not to take father's when we were starting."

"I can see well enough," said Frank. "What I'd like would be to be able to hear what he's saying."

"I don't take any interest in bad language, and in any case I don't believe he's capable of it. He looked to me like the kind of man who wouldn't say anything much worse than 'Dear me.'"

"Wouldn't he? Look at him now. If he isn't cursing I'll eat my hat."

The spy had shaken himself free of his companion's pocket handkerchief. He was waving his arms violently and shouting so loudly that his voice reached the Tortoise against the wind.

"I suppose," said Priscilla, "that that's his way of trying to get dry without catching a chill. Horrid ass, isn't he? It'd be far better for him to run. What's the good of yelling? I expect in reality it's simply temper."

But Priscilla underestimated the intelligence of the spy. It appeared very soon that he was not merely giving expression to emotion, but had a purpose in his performance. The lady, too, began to shout, shrilly. She waved her damp pocket handkerchief round and round her head. Priscilla and Frank turned and saw that another boat, a small black boat, with a very dilapidated lug sail, had appeared round the corner of the next island, and was making towards Inishark.

"Bother," said Priscilla, "that man, whoever he is, will bring them back their boat."

The steersman in the lug-sailed boat altered his course slightly and reached down towards the derelict As he neared her he dropped his sail and got out oars.

"That's young Kinsella," said Priscilla. "I know him by the red sleeve his mother sewed into that gray shirt of his. No one else has a shirt the least like it. He's a soft-hearted sort of boy who'd do a good turn to any one. He's sure to take their boat back to them."

"He has a lady with him," said Frank.

"He has. I can't see who she is; but it doesn't look like his mother. Can't be, in fact, for she has a baby to mind. I collared a lot of flannel out of a box in Aunt Juliet's room last 'hols' and gave it to her for the baby. It's a bit of what I gave her that was made into a sleeve for Jimmy's shirt. I wonder now who it is he has got with him?"

Jimmy Kinsella overtook the drifting boat, took her painter, and began to tow her towards Inishark.

"That lady," said Priscilla, "is a black stranger to me. Who can she possibly be?"

Jimmy Kinsella rowed hard, and in about ten minutes ran his own boat aground on Inishark. He disembarked, dragged at the painter of Flanagan's boat and handed her over to the lady on the island. A long conversation followed. The whole party, Jimmy Kinsella, his lady, the dripping spy, and the original lady with the damp pocket handkerchief, consulted together eagerly. Then they took the hold-all out of Flanagan's boat. There was another conversation, and it became plain that the two ladies were expostulating with the dripping gentleman. Jimmy Kinsella stood a little apart and gazed placidly at the two boats. Then the hold-all was unpacked and a number of garments laid out on the beach. They were sorted out and a bundle of them handed to the spy. He walked straight up the slope of the island and disappeared over the crest of the hill.

"Gone to change his clothes," said Priscilla.

The two ladies repacked the hold-all. Jimmy Kinsella stowed it in the bow of Flanagan's boat. Then the lady of the island got it out again, unpacked it once more, and took something out of it.

"Clean pocket-handkerchief, I expect," said Priscilla.

The guess was evidently a good one, for she spread the wet handkerchief on a stone. Her companion reappeared over the crest of the island, clad in another pair of white trousers and another sweater. He carried his wet garments at arm's length. Jimmy Kinsella went to meet him. They talked together as they walked down to the boats. Then the two ladies kissed each other warmly. Priscilla watched the performance with a sneer.

"Awful rot, that kind of thing," she said.

"All women do it," said Frank.

Here at last he was unquestionably Priscilla's superior. Never, to his recollection, had he kissed any one except his mother, and he was generally content to allow her to kiss him.

"I don't; Sylvia Courtney tried it on with me when we were saying good-bye at the end of last term, but I jolly soon choked her off. Can't think where the pleasure is supposed to come in."

Jimmy Kinsella placed the spy lady in the stern of Flanagan's boat and handed in her companion. He arranged the oars and the rowlocks and then, standing ankle deep in the water, shoved her off. The spy took his oars and pulled away. Priscilla and Frank watched the boat until she disappeared.

"Pretty rough luck on us," said Priscilla, "Jimmy Kinsella turning up just at that moment. I wonder if that woman is a man in disguise. She might be, you know. They sometimes are."

"Couldn't possibly. No man would have been such a fool as to go trying to dry anybody with a pocket handkerchief. Only a woman——"

"If it comes to that," said Priscilla, "no woman would have been such a fool as to let that boat go the way he did. Girls aren't the only asses in the world, Cousin Frank."

"Besides," said Frank, "she evidently took a lot of trouble to persuade him to change his clothes. That looks as if——"

"It does, rather. I daresay she's his aunt. It's just the kind of thing Aunt Juliet would have done before she took to Christian Science. Now, of course, it would be against her principles. Let's have another Californian peach to fill in the time."

Frank handed the tin to her and afterwards helped himself.

"Have you drunk all your beer, Cousin Frank?"

"No. Want some?"

"I was only thinking," said Priscilla, "that perhaps you'd better not. I've just recollected King John."

"What about him?"

"It was peaches and beer that finished him off, after he'd got stuck in crossing the Wash. That's rather the sort of position we're in now, and I shouldn't like anything to happen to you."

Frank, by way of demonstrating his courage, took a long draught of lager beer, then he looked across at Inishark. Priscilla's eyes followed his. For a minute or two they gazed in silence.

Jimmy Kinsella's boat still lay on the shore. Jimmy Kinsella's lady had taken off her shoes and stockings and rolled up the sleeves of her blouse. Her skirt was kilted high and folded over a broad band which kept it well above her knees. Jimmy Kinsella himself, who was modest as well as chivalrous, sat on a stone with his back to her and gazed at the slope of the island. The lady waded about in the shallow water. Now and then she plunged her arms in and appeared to fish something up from the bottom. Priscilla and Frank looked at each other in amazement.

"I wonder what on earth's she's doing," said Priscilla. "Can she possibly be taking soundings?"

"No," said Frank. "Soundings aren't taken that way. You do it with a line and a lead from the deck of a ship."

"All the same," said Priscilla, "she's in league with the other spies. You saw the way they kissed each other."

"She may," said Frank, "be taking specimens of the sea bottom. That's a very important thing, I believe."

"It is, frightfully; but that's not the way it's done. There was a curious old johnny last term who gave us a lecture on hydrography—that's what he called it—and he said you gather up small bits of the bottom by putting tallow on the end of a lump of lead. I expect he knew what he was talking about, but, of course, he may not You never can tell about those scientific lecturers. They keep on contradicting each other so."

"If she's not doing that, what is she doing?"

"She may possibly be trying to cure her rheumatism," said Priscilla. "They generally bathe for that; but she may not feel bad enough to go to such extremes. She looks rather fat. Fat people do have rheumatism, don't they?"

"No, gout."

"More or less the same thing," said Priscilla. "Of course, if that's what she's at, she's not a spy, and we oughtn't to go on treating her as if she was. I don't think it's right to suspect people of really bad crimes unless one knows. Do you, Cousin Frank?"

"Of course not. All the same, the way she's going on is rather queer. She's just put something that she picked up into that tin box she has slung across her back. That doesn't look to me as if she had gout."

"If only Jimmy Kinsella would turn this way," said Priscilla, "I'd wave at him and make him come over here. It's perfectly maddening being stuck like this when such a lot of exciting things are going on. What time is it?"

"A little after two."

"It's low water then," said Priscilla. "From this on the tide will be coming in again."

The Tortoise lay on the top of a grey bank from which the water had entirely receded. Between her and the channel, now a tangle of floating weed, lay a broad stretch of mud, dotted over with large stones and patches of gravel. The wind, which had been veering round to the south since twelve o'clock, had almost entirely died away. The sun shone very warmly. The Tortoise, lying sadly on her side, afforded no shelter at all. Both the beer and the lemonade were finished.

Priscilla drank some peach juice from the tin.



CHAPTER VIII

After wading about for a little more than half an hour, Jimmy Kineslla's lady went ashore. She rolled down the sleeves of her blouse and let her skirt fall about her ankles, but she did not put on her shoes and stockings. Jimmy Kinsella was summoned from his stone and launched his boat.

"I daresay," said Priscilla, "that she thinks her rheumatism ought to be cured by now. That is to say, of course, if she really has rheumatism, and isn't a nefarious spy. I rather like that word nefarious. Don't you? I stuck it into an English comp. the other day and spelt it quite right, but it came back to me with a blue pencil mark under it. Sylvia Courtney said that I hadn't used it in quite the ordinary sense. She thinks she knows, and very likely she does, though not quite as much as she imagines. Nobody can know everything; which is rather a comfort when it comes to algebra. I loath algebra and always did. Any right-minded person would, I think."

"It looks to me," said Frank, "as if they were coming over here."

Jimmy Kinsella was heading his boat straight for the bank on which the Tortoise lay. In a few minutes she grounded on the edge of it. The lady stepped out and paddled across the mud towards the Tortoise. Seen at close quarters she was, without doubt, fat, and had a round good-humoured face. Her eyes sparkled pleasantly behind a pair of gold rimmed pince-nez.

"She is coming over to us," said Priscilla. "The thing is for you to keep her in play and unravel her mystery, while I slip off and put a few straight questions to Jimmy Kinsella. Be as polite as you possibly can so as to disarm suspicion."

Priscilla began the course of diplomatic politeness herself.

"We're delighted to see you," she said. "My name is Priscilla Lentaigne, and my cousin is Frank Mannix. We're out for a picnic."

"My name," said the lady, "is Rutherford, Martha Rutherford. I'm out after sponges."

"Sponges!" said Frank.

Priscilla winked at him. The statement about the sponges was obviously untrue. There is no sponge fishery in Rosnacree Bay. There never has been. Miss Rutherford, so to speak, intercepted Priscilla's wink.

"By sponges," she said, "I mean——"

"Won't you sit down?" said Priscilla.

She picked her stockings from the gunwale of the boat, leaving a clear space beside Miss Rutherford.

"Bother!" she said, "the dye out of the purple clocks has run. That's the worst of purple clocks. I half suspected it would at the time, but Sylvia Courtney insisted on my buying them. She said they looked chic. Would you care for anything to eat, Miss Rutherford?"

"I'm nearly starved. That's why I came over here. I thought you might have some food."

"We've lots," said Priscilla. "Frank will give it to you. I'll just step across and speak to Jimmy Kinsella. I want to hear about the baby."

"I'm afraid," said Miss Rutherford, when Priscilla left them, "that your cousin doesn't believe me about the sponges."

Frank felt deeply ashamed of Priscilla's behaviour. The prefect in him reasserted itself now that he was in the presence of a grown-up lady. He felt it necessary to apologise.

"She's very young," he said, "and I'm afraid she's rather foolish. Little girls of that age——"

He intended to say something of a paternal kind, something which would give Miss Rutherford the impression that he had kindly undertaken the care of Priscilla during the day in order to oblige those ordinarily responsible for her. A curious smile, which began to form at the corners of Miss Rutherford's lips and a sudden twinkling of her eyes, stopped him abruptly.

"I hope you'll excuse my not standing up," he said, "I've sprained my ankle."

"I'd like to get in and sit beside you if I may," said Miss Rutherford. "Now for the food."

"There's some cold tongue," said Frank.

"Capital. I love cold tongue."

"But—I'm afraid—" He fished it out from beneath the thwart, "—it may be rather grubby."

"I don't mind that a bit."

"And—the fact is my cousin—it's only fair to tell you—she bit it pretty nearly all over and——" Frank hesitated. He was an honourable boy. Even at the cost of losing Miss Rutherford's respect he would not refrain from telling the truth, "And I bit it too," he blurted out.

"Then I suppose I may," said Miss Rutherford. "I should like to more than anything. I so seldom get the chance."

She bit and munched heartily; bit again, and smiled at Frank. He began to feel more at his ease.

"There are some biscuits," he said. "The macaroons are finished, I'm afraid. But there are some cocoanut creams. I'm afraid they're rather too sweet to go well with tongue."

"In the state of starvation I'm in," she said, "marmalade would go with pea soup. Cocoanut creams and tongue will be simply delicious. Have you anything to drink?"

"Only the juice of the tinned peaches."

"Peach juice," said Miss Rutherford, "is nectar. Do I drink it out of the tin or must I pour it into the palm of my hand and lap?"

"Any way you like," said Frank. "I believe there's a bailer somewhere if you prefer it."

"I prefer the tin, if it doesn't shock you."

"Oh," said Frank, "nothing shocks me."

This was very nearly true. It had not been true a week before; but a day on the sea with Priscilla had done a great deal for Frank. Miss Rutherford threw her head back, tilted the peach tin, and quaffed a satisfying draught.

"I'm afraid," she said, "that you were just as sceptical as your cousin was about my sponges."

"I was rather surprised."

"Naturally. You were thinking of bath sponges and naked Indians plunging over the side of their boats with large stones in their hands to sink them. But I'm not after bath sponges. I'm doing the zoophytes for the natural history survey of this district."

"Oh," said Frank vaguely.

"They brought me over from the British Museum because I'm supposed to know something about the zoophytes. I ought to, for I don't know anything else."

"It must be most interesting."

"Last week I did the fresh water lakes and got some very good results. Professor Wilder and his wife are doing rotifers. They're stopping——"

"In tents?" said Frank with interest.

"Tents! No. In quite the sweetest cottage you ever saw. I sleep on a sofa in the porch. What put tents into your head?"

"Then it wasn't Professor Wilder and his wife whose boat you rescued just now?"

"Oh, dear no. I don't know who those people are at all. I never saw them before. Miss Benson is doing the lichens, and Mr. Farringdon the moths. They're the only other members of our party here at present, and I'm the only one out on the bay."

Frank was conscious of a sense of relief. It would have been a disappointment to him if the German spies had turned out to be harmless botanists or entomologists.

Jimmy Kinsella was sitting in front of his boat gazing placidly at the sea when Priscilla tapped him on the shoulder.

"What are you doing here, Jimmy?" she said.

"Is that yourself, Miss?" said Jimmy, eyeing her quietly.

"It is. And the only other person present is you. Now we've got that settled."

Jimmy Kinsella grinned.

"I thought it was the Tortoise when I saw her; but I said to myself 'There's strangers on board of her, for Miss Priscilla would know better than to run her aground on the bank when the tide would be leaving her.'"

"You haven't told me yet," said Priscilla, "what you're doing here."

"I'm out along with the lady beyond."

"I could see that much for myself. What's she doing?"

"Without she'd be trying the salt water for the good of her health, I don't know what she's doing."

"I thought at first that it might be that," said Priscilla. "Has she any sponges with her?"

"Not that I seen, Miss. But sure none of them would take a sponge with them into the sea. They get plenty of it without that."

"I just thought she hadn't."

"If I was to be put on my oath," said Jimmy slowly, "and was to be asked what I thought of her——"

"That's just what I am asking you."

"I'd say she was a high up lady; may be one of them ones that does be waiting on the Queen, or the wife of the Lord Lieutenant or such."

"What makes you say that?"

"The skin of her."

Jimmy's eyes which had been fixed on the remote horizon focussed themselves slowly for nearer objects. His glance settled finally on Priscilla's bare feet.

"Ah!" she said, "when she took off her shoes and stockings?"

"Saving your presence, Miss, the legs of her doesn't look as if she was accustomed to going about that way."

"And that's all you know about her?"

"Herself and a gentleman that was along with her settled with my da yesterday for the use of the boat, the way I'd row her anywhere she'd a fancy to go."

"That was the gentleman who has Flanagan's old boat, I suppose?"

"It was not then, but a different gentleman altogether."

"Then you can leave him out," said Prisdlla, "and tell me all you know about the other couple, the ones who lost their boat."

"Them ones," said Jimmy, "has no sense, no more than a baby would have. Did you hear what they're after paying Flanagan for that old boat of his?"

"Four pounds a week."

"You'd think," said Jimmy, "that when they'd no more care for their money than to be throwing it away that way they'd be able to afford to pay for a roof over their heads and not to be sleeping on the bare ground with no more than a cotton rag to shelter them. It was last Friday they came in to Inishbawn looking mighty near as if they'd had enough of it 'Is there any objection,' says he, 'to our camping on this island?' 'We'll pay you,' says the lady, 'anything in reason for the use of the land.' My da was terrible sorry for them, for he could see well that they weren't ones that was used to hardship; but he told them that it would be better for them not."

"On account of the rats?"

"Rats! What rats?"

"The rats that have the island very nearly eaten," said Priscilla.

"Sorra the rat ever I saw on Inishbawn, only one that came out in the boat one day along with a sack of yellow meal my da was bringing home from the quay; and I killed it myself with the slap of a loy."

"I just thought Peter Walsh was telling me a lie about the rats," said Priscilla. "But if it wasn't rats will you tell me why your father wouldn't let them camp on Inishbawn?"

"He said it would be better for them not," said Jimmy, "on account of there being fever on it, for fear they might catch it and maybe die."

"What fever?"

"I don't rightly know the name of it; but sure my ma is covered thick with yellow spots the size of a sixpence or bigger; and the young lads is worse. The cries of them at night would make you turn round on your bed pitying them."

"Do you expect me to believe all that?" said Priscilla.

"Three times my da was in for the doctor," said Jimmy, "and the third time he fetched out a powerful fine bottle that he bought in Brannigan's, but it was no more use to them than water. Is it likely now that he'd allow a strange lady and a gentleman to come to the island, and them not knowing? He wouldn't do it for a hundred pounds."

"If you're going on talking that kind of way there's not much use my asking you any more questions. But I'd like very much to know where those camping people are now."

"I shouldn't wonder," said Jimmy, "but they're drowned. The planks of that old boat of Flanagan's is opened so as you could see the daylight in between every one of them, and it would take a man with a can to be bailing the whole time you'd be going anywhere in her; let alone that the gentleman——"

"I know what the gentleman is in a boat," said Priscilla.

"And herself is no better. It was only this morning my ma was saying to me that it's wonderful the little sense them ones has."

"I thought," said Priscilla, "that your mother was out all over yellow spots. What does she know about them?"

Jimmy Kinsella grinned sheepishly.

"Believe you me, Miss," he said, "if it was only yourself that was in it——"

"There'd be neither rats nor fever on the island, I suppose."

Jimmy looked towards the Tortoise and let his eyes rest with an inquiring expression on Frank Mannix.

"That gentleman's ankle is sprained," said Priscilla, "so whatever it is that you have on your island, you needn't be afraid of him."

"That might be," said Jimmy.

"You can tell your father from me," said Priscilla, "that the next time I'm out this way I'll land on Inish-bawn and see for myself what it is that has you all telling lies."

"Any time you come, Miss, you'll be welcome. It's a poor place we have, surely, but it would be a queer thing if we wouldn't give you the best of what might be going. But I don't know how it is. There's a powerful lot of strangers knocking around, people that might be decent or might not."

His eyes were still fixed on Frank Mannix when Priscilla left him.

The tide was flowing strongly and the water began to cover the lower parts of the bank. Priscilla measured with her eye the distance between the Tortoise and the sea. She calculated that she might get off in about an hour.

When she reached the Tortoise she found Frank pressing the last half peach on their guest.

"Miss Rutherford," said Priscilla, "have you landed on Inishbawn, that island to the west of you, behind the corner of Illaunglos?"

"No," she said. "I wanted to, but the boy who's rowing me strongly advised me not to."

"Rats?" Said Priscilla, "or fever?"

Miss Rutherford seemed puzzled by the inquiry.

"What I mean," said Priscilla, "is this: did he give you any reason for not landing on the island?"

"As well as I recollect," said Miss Rutherford, "he said something to the effect that it wasn't a suitable island for ladies. I didn't take much notice of what he said, for it didn't matter to me where I landed. One of the islands is the same thing as another. In fact Inishbawn, if that's its name, doesn't look a very good place for sponges."

"Oh, you still stick to those sponges?" said Priscilla.

"Miss Rutherford," said Frank, "is collecting zoophytes for the British Museum."

"Investigating and tabulating," said Miss Rutherford, "for the Royal Dublin Society's Natural History Survey."

"I took up elementary science last term," said Priscilla, "but we didn't do about those things of yours. I daresay we'll get on to them next year. If we do I'll write to you for the names of some of the rarer kinds and score off Miss Pennycolt with them. She's the science teacher, and she thinks she knows a lot. It'll do her good to be made to look small over a sponge that she's never seen before, or even heard of."

"I'll send them to you," said Miss Rutherford. "I take the greatest delight in scoring off science teachers everywhere. I was taught science myself at one time and I know exactly what it's like."

Jimmy Kinsella sat on a stone with his back to the party in the Tortoise. An instinct for good manners is the natural inheritance of all Irishmen. The peasant has it as surely as the peer, generally indeed more surely, for the peer, having mixed more with men of other nations, loses something of his natural delicacy of feeling. When, as in the case of young Kinsella, the Irishman has much to do with the sea his courtesy reaches a high degree of refinement As the advancing tide crept inch by inch over the mudbank Jimmy Kinsella was forced back towards the Tortoise. He moved from stone to stone, dragging his boat after him as the water floated her. Never once did he look round or make any attempt to attract the attention of Miss Rutherford. He would no doubt have retreated uncomplaining to the highest point of the bank and sat there till the water reached his waist, clinging to the painter of the boat, rather than disturb the conversation of the lady whom he had taken under his care. But his courtesy was put to no such extreme test He made a move at last which brought him within a few feet of the Tortoise. A mere patch of sea-soaked mud remained uncovered. The water, advancing from the far side of the bank, already lapped against the bows of the Tortoise. Miss Rutherford woke up to the fact that the time for catching sponges was past.

"I'm afraid," she said, "that I ought to be getting home. I can't tell you how much obliged to you I am for feeding me. I believe I should have fainted if it hadn't been for that tongue."

"It was a pleasure to us," said Priscilla. "We'd eaten all we could before you came."

"I'm afraid," said Frank politely, "that it wasn't very nice. We ought to have had knives and forks or at least a tumbler to drink out of. I don't know what you must think of us."

"Think of you!" said Miss Rutherford. "I think you're the two nicest children I ever met."

She stumped off and joined Jimmy Kinsella. Priscilla saw her putting on her shoes and stockings as the boat rowed away. She shouted a farewell. Miss Rutherford waved a stocking in reply.

"There," said Priscilla, turning to Frank, "what do you think of that? The two nicest children! I don't mind of course; but I do call it rather rough on you after talking so grand and having on your best first eleven coat and all."



CHAPTER IX

Frank learned several things while the sails were being hoisted. The word halyard became familiar to him and connected itself definitely with certain ropes. He discovered that a sheet is, oddly enough, not an expanse of canvas, but another rope. He impressed carefully on his mind the part of the boat in which he might, under favourable circumstances, expect to find the centreboard tackle.

The wind, which had dropped completely at low water, sprang up again, this time from the west, with the rising tide. This was pleasant and promised a fair run home, but Priscilla eyed the sky suspiciously. She was weather-wise.

"It'll die clean away," she said, "towards evening. It always does on this kind of day when it has worked round with the sun. Curious things winds are, Cousin Frank, aren't they? Rather like ices in some ways, I always think."

Frank had considerable experience of ices, and had been obliged, while playing various games, to take some notice of the wind from time to time; but he missed the point of Priscilla's comparison. She explained herself.

"If you put in a good spoonful at once," she said, "it gives you a pain in some tooth or other and you don't enjoy it. On the other hand, if you put in a very little bit it gets melted away before you're able to taste it properly. That's just the way the wind behaves when you're out sailing. Either it has you clinging on to the main sheet for all you're worth or else it dies away and leaves you flapping. It's only about once a month that you get just what you want."

It seemed to Frank, when the boat got under way, that they had happened on the one propitious day. The Tortoise slipped pleasantly along, her sails well filled, the boom pressed forward against the shroud, the main sheet an attenuated coil at Priscilla's feet.

"I'm feeling a bit bothered," said Priscilla.

"We ought to have been back for luncheon," said Frank. "I know that."

"It's not luncheon that's bothering me; although it's quite likely that we won't be back for dinner either. What I can't quite make up my mind about is what we ought to do next about those spies."

"Go after them again to-morrow."

"That's all well enough; but things are much more mixed up than that. In some ways I rather wish we had Sylvia Courtney with us. She's president of our Browning Society and tremendously good at every kind of complication. What I feel is that we're rather like those boys in the poem who went out to catch a hare and came on a lion unaware. I haven't got the passage quite right but you probably know it."

Frank did. He could not, since English literature is still only fitfully studied in public schools, have named the author. But he quoted the lines with fluent confidence. It was by turning them into Greek Iambics that he had won the head-master's prize.

"That's it," said Priscilla. "And that's more or less what has happened to us. We went out to chase a simple, ordinary German spy and we have come on two other mysteries of the most repulsively fascinating kind. First there's Miss Rutherford, if that's her real name, who says she's fishing for sponges, which is certainly a lie."

"I don't know about it's being a lie," said Frank. "She explained it to me after you'd gone."

"Oh, that about zoophytes. You don't believe that surely?"

"I do," said Frank. "There are lots of queer things in the British Museum. I was there once."

"My own belief is," said Priscilla, "that she simply trotted out those zoophyte things and the British Museum when she found that we weren't inclined to swallow the ordinary sponge. At the same time I can't believe that she's a criminal of any kind. She struck me as being an uncommonly good sort. The wind's dropping. I told you it would. Very soon now we shall have to row. Can you row, Cousin Frank?"

Frank replied with cheerful confidence that he could. He had sat at Priscilla's feet all day and bowed to her superior knowledge of sailing. When it came to rowing he was sure that he could hold his own. He understood the phraseology of the art, had learned to take advantage of sliding seats, could keep his back straight and had been praised by a member of a University eight for his swing.

"The other mystery," said Priscilla, "is Inishbawn. The Kinsellas won't let the spies land on the island. They won't let Miss Rutherford. They won't let you, They tell every kind of ridiculous story to head people off."

The thought of his prowess as an oarsman had restored Frank's self-respect. He recollected the reason given by Jimmy Kinsella for not allowing Miss Rutherford to land on Inishbawn.

"I don't see anything ridiculous about it," he said. "Young Kinsella simply said that it wasn't a suitable place for ladies. There are lots of places we men go to where we wouldn't take———-"

His sentence tailed away. Priscilla's eyes expressed an amount of amusement which made him feel singularly uncomfortable.

"That," she said, "is the most utter rot I've ever heard in my life. And in any case, even if it was true, it wouldn't apply to us. Jimmy Kinsella distinctly said that I might land on the island as much as I like, but that he jolly well wouldn't have you. We may just as well row now as later on. The breeze is completely gone."

She got out the oars and dropped the rowlocks into their holes. She pulled stroke oar herself. Frank settled himself on the seat behind her. He found himself in a position of extreme discomfort. The Tortoise was designed and built to be a sailing boat. It was not originally contemplated that she should be rowed far or rowed fast. When Frank leaned back at the end of his stroke he bumped against the mast When he swung forward in the proper way he hit Priscilla between the shoulders with his knuckles. When the boat shot forward the boom swung inboard. If this happened at the end of a stroke Frank was hit on the shoulder. If it happened at the beginning of a stroke the spar struck him on the ear. However he shifted his position he was unable to avoid sitting on some rope. The centreboard case was between his legs and when he tried to get his injured foot against anything firm he found it entangled in ropes which he could not kick away. Priscilla complained.

"Put a little more beef into it, Cousin Frank," she said. "I'm pulling her head round all the time."

Frank put all the energy he could into a series of short jerky strokes, using the muscles of his arms, failing altogether to get the weight of his body on the oar. At the end of twenty minutes Priscilla gave him a rest.

"There's no use our killing ourselves," she said. "The tide's under us. It's a jolly lucky thing it is. If it was the other way we wouldn't get home to-night. I wonder now whether the Kinsellas think you've any connection with the police. You don't look it in the least, but you never can tell what people will think. If they do mistake you for anything of the sort it might account for their not wanting you to land on Inishbawn."

"Why?"

"Oh, I don't know why exactly—not yet. But there often are things knocking about which it wouldn't at all do for the police to see. That might happen anywhere. There's an air of wind coming up behind us. Just get in that oar of yours. We may as well take the good of what's going."

A faint ripple on the surface of the water approached the Tortoise. Before it reached her the boom swung forward, lifting the dripping main sheet from the water, and the boat slipped on.

"But of course," said Priscilla, "that idea of your being a policeman in disguise doesn't account for their telling Miss Rutherford that there was something on the island which it wouldn't be nice for a lady to see. And it doesn't account for the swine-fever story that Joseph Antony Kinsella told the spies."

"What was that?"

"Oh, nothing much. Only that his wife and children had come out all over in bright yellow spots."

"But perhaps they have."

"Not they. You might just as well believe in Peter Walsh's rats. That leaves us with three different mysteries on hand." Priscilla hooked her elbow over the tiller and ticked off the three mysteries on the fingers of her right hand. "The sponge lady, whose name may be Miss Rutherford, one. Inishbawn Island, that's two. The original spies, which makes three. I'm afraid we'll have to row again. Do you think you can, Cousin Frank?"

"Of course I can."

"Don't be offended. I only meant that you mightn't be able to on account of your ankle. How is your ankle?"

"It's all right," said Frank, "That is to say it's just the same."

No other favouring breeze rippled the surface of the bay. For rather more than an hour, with occasional intervals for rest, Frank tugged at his oar, bumped his back, and was struck on the side of the head by the boom. He was very much exhausted when the Tortoise was at length brought alongside the slip at the end of the quay. Priscilla still seemed fresh and vigorous.

"I wonder," said Frank, "if we could hire a boy."

"Dozens," said Priscilla, "if you want them... What for?"

"To wheel that bath-chair. I can't walk, you know. And I don't like to think of your pushing me up the hill. You must be tired."

"That," said Priscilla, "is what I call real politeness. There are lots of other kinds of politeness which aren't worth tuppence. But that kind is rather nice. It makes me feel quite grown up. All the same I'll wheel you home."

She pushed the bath-chair up the hill from the village without any obvious effort. At the gate of the avenue she stopped. Two small children were playing just inside it. A rather larger child set on the doorstep of the gate lodge with a baby on her knee.

"What time is it, Cousin Frank?" said Priscilla.

"It's ten minutes past seven."

"Susan Ann, where's your mother?"

The girl with the baby on her knee struggled to her feet and answered:

"She's up at the house beyond, Miss."

"I just thought she must be," said Priscilla, "when I saw William Thomas and the other boy playing there, and you nursing the baby. If your mother wasn't up at the house you'd all be in your beds."

She wheeled the bath-chair on until she turned the corner of the avenue and was lost to the sight of the children who peered after her. Then she paused.

"Cousin Frank," she said, "it's just as well for you to be prepared for some kind of fuss when we get home."

"We're awfully late, I know."

"It's not that. It's something far worse. The fuss that's going on up there at the present moment is a thunderstorm compared to what there would be over our being late."

"How do you know there's a fuss?"

"Before she was married," said Priscilla, "Mrs. Geraghty—that's the woman at the gate lodge, the mother of those four children—was our upper housemaid. Aunt Juliet simply loved her. She rubs her into all the other servants day and night. She says she was the only sufficient housemaid. I'm not sure that that's quite the right word. It may be efficient Any how she says she's the only something-or-other-ficient housemaid she ever had; which of course is a grand thing for Mrs. Geraghty, though not really as nice as it seems, because whenever anything perfectly appalling happens Aunt Juliet sends for her. Then she and Aunt Juliet rag the other servants until things get smoothed out again. The minute I saw those children sporting about when by rights they ought to be in bed I knew that Mrs. Geraghty had been sent for. Now you understand the sort of thing you have to expect when we get home. I thought I'd just warn you, so that you wouldn't be taken by surprise."

Frank felt that he still might be taken by surprise and urged Priscilla to give him some further details about the catastrophe.

"We'll find out soon enough," said Priscilla. "At least we may. If it's the kind of thing that's visible, streams of water running down the front stairs or anything like that, we'll see for ourselves, but if it happens to be a more inward sort of disaster which we can't see—and that's the kind there's always the worst fuss about—then it may take us some time to find out. Aunt Juliet doesn't think it's good for children to know about inward disasters, and so she never talks of them when I'm there except in what she calls French, and not much of that because Father can't understand her. They may, of course, confide in you. It all depends on whether they think you're a child or not."

"I'm not."

"I know that, of course. And Aunt Juliet saw you in your evening coat last night at dinner, so she oughtn't to. But you never can tell about things of that kind. Look at the sponge lady for instance. She said you were the nicest child she ever saw. Still they may tell you."

Frank did not like being reminded of Miss Rutherford's remark. Priscilla's repetition of it goaded him to a reply which he immediately afterwards felt to be unworthy.

"If they do tell me," he said, "I won't tell you."

"Then you'll be a mean, low beast," said Priscilla.

Frank pulled himself together with an effort. He realised that it would never do to bandy schoolboy repartee with Priscilla. His loss of dignity would be complete. And besides, he was very likely to get the worst of the encounter. He was out of practise. Prefects do not descend to personalities.

"My dear Priscilla," he said, "I only meant that I wouldn't tell you if it was the sort of thing a girl oughtn't to hear."

"Like what Jimmy Kinsella has on Inishbawn," said Priscilla. "Do you know, Cousin Frank, you're quite too funny for words when you go in for being grand. Now would you like me to wheel you up to the hall-door and ring the bell, or would you rather we sneaked round through the shrubbery into the yard, and got in by the gunroom door and so up the back stairs?"

"I don't care," said Frank.

"The back way would be the wisest," said Priscilla, "but in the state of grandeur you're in now——"

"Oh, do drop it, Priscilla."

"I don't want to keep it up."

"Then go by the back door."

"Do you promise to tell me all about it, supposing they tell you, and they may? You can never be sure what they'll do."

"Yes, I promise."

"A faithful, solemn oath?"

"Yes."

"Whether it's the sort of thing a girl ought to be told or not?"

"Yes. Only do go on. It'll take me hours to dress, and we're awfully late already."

Priscilla trotted briskly through the shrubbery, crossed the yard and helped Frank out of the chair at the gunroom door. She gave him her arm while he hobbled up the back stairs. At the top of the first flight she deserted him suddenly. She darted forward, half opened a baize covered swing door and peeped through.

"I just thought I heard them at it," she said. "Mrs. Geraghty and the two housemaids are rioting in the long gallery, dragging the furniture about and, generally speaking, playing old hokey. That gives us a certain amount of information, Cousin Frank."



CHAPTER X

ROSNACREE HOUSE was built early in the 19th century by the Lentaigne of that day, one Sir Francis. At the beginning of that century the Irish gentry were still an aristocracy. They ruled, and had among their number men who were gentlemen of the grand style, capable of virile passions and striking deeds, incapable, constitutionally and by training, of the prudent foresight of careful tradesmen. Lord Thormanby, who rejoiced in a brand new Union peerage and was a wealthy man, kept race horses. Sir Francis, who, except for the Union peerage, was as big a man as Lord Thormanby, kept race horses too. Lord Thormanby bought a family coach of remarkable proportions. Sir Francis ordered a duplicate of it from the same coach-builder. Lord Thormanby employed an Italian architect to build him a house. Sir Francis sought out the same architect and gave him orders to build another house, identical with Lord Thormanby's in design, but having each room two feet longer, two feet higher and two feet broader than the corresponding room at Thormanby Park. The architect, after talking a good deal about proportions in a way which Sir Francis did not understand, accepted the commission and erected Rosnacree House.

The two additional cubic feet made all the difference. Lord Thormanby's fortune survived the building operations. Lord Francis Lentaigne's estate was crippled.

His successors struggled with a burden of mortgages and a mansion considerably too large for their requirements. Sir Lucius, when his turn came, shut up the great gallery, which ran the whole length of the second storey of the house, and lived with a tolerable amount of elbow room in five downstairs sitting rooms and fourteen bedrooms. Miss Lentaigne made occasional raids on the gallery in order to see that the fine old-fashioned furniture did not rot. Neither she nor her brother thought of using the room.

For Frank Mannix the white tie which is worn in the evening was still something of a novelty and therefore a difficulty. He was struggling with it, convinced of the great importance of having the two sides of its bow symmetrical, when Priscilla tapped at his bedroom door. In response to his invitation to enter she opened the door half way and put her head and shoulders into the room.

"I thought I'd just tell you as I was passing," she said, "that it's all right about your ankle."

Frank, who had just re-bandaged the injured limb, asked her what she meant.

"I've seen Aunt Juliet," she said, "and I find that she's quite dropped Christian Science and is frightfully keen on Woman's Suffrage. That's always the way with her. When she's done with a thing she simply hoofs it without a word of apology to anyone. It was the same with the uric acid. She'd talk of nothing else in the morning and before night it was withered like the flower of the field upon the housetop, 'whereof the mower filleth not his arm.' I expect you know the sort I mean."

She shut the door and Frank heard her running down the passage. A couple of minutes later he heard her running back again. This time she opened the door without tapping.

"I can't think," she said, "what Woman's Suffrage can possibly have to do with the big gallery, but they must be mixed up somehow or Mrs. Geraghty and the housemaids wouldn't be sporting about the way they are. They're at it still. I've just looked in at them."

During dinner the conversation was very largely political. Sir Lucius inveighed with great bitterness against the government's policy in Ireland. Now and then he recollected that Frank's father was a supporter of the government. Then he made such excuses for the Cabinet's blundering as he could. Miss Lentaigne also condemned the government, though less for its incurable habit for truckling to the forces of disorder in Ireland, than for its cowardly and treacherous treatment of women. She made no attempt to spare Frank's feelings. Indeed, she pointed many of her remarks by uncomplimentary references to Lord Torrington, Secretary of State for War, and the immediate chief of Mr. Edward Mannix, M.P. Lord Torrington, so the public understood, was the most dogged and determined opponent of the enfranchisement of women. He absolutely refused to receive deputations of ladies and had more than once said publicly that he was in entire agreement with a statement attributed to the German Emperor, by which the energies of women were confined to babies, baking and bazaars for church purposes. Miss Lentaigne scorched this sentiment with invective, and used language about Lord Torrington which was terrific. Her abandonment of the cause of Christian Science appeared to be as complete as the most enthusiastic general practitioner could desire. Frank was exceedingly uncomfortable. Priscilla was demure and silent.

When Miss Lentaigne, followed by Priscilla, left the room, Sir Lucius became confidential and friendly. He pushed the decanter of port towards Frank.

"Fill up your glass, my boy," he said. "After your long day on the sea—— By the way I hope your aunt—I keep forgetting that she's not your aunt—I hope she didn't say anything at dinner to hurt your feelings. You mustn't mind, you know. We're all rather hot about politics in this country. Have to be with the way these infernal Leagues and things are going on. You don't understand, of course, Frank. Nor does your father. If he did he wouldn't vote with that gang. Your aunt—I mean to say my sister is—well, you saw for yourself. She usedn't to be, you know. It's only quite lately that she's taken the subject up. And there's something in it. I can't deny that there's something in it. She's a clever woman, There's always something in what she says. Though she pushes things too far sometimes. So does Torrington, it appears. Only he pushes them the other way. I think he goes too far, quite too far. Of course, my sister does too, in the opposite direction."

Sir Lucius sighed.

"It's all right, Uncle Lucius," said Frank. "I don't mind a bit. I'm not well enough up in these things to answer Miss Lentaigne. If father was here——"

"What's that? Is your father coming here?"

"Oh, no," said Frank. "He's in Schlangenbad."

"Of course, of course. By the way, your father's pretty intimate with Torrington, isn't he? The Secretary of State for War."

"My father's under-secretary of the War Office," said Frank.

"Now, what sort of a man is Torrington? He's a distant cousin of mine. My great aunt was his grandmother or something of that sort But I only met him once, years ago. Apart from politics now, I don't profess to admire his politics—I never did. How men like your father and Torrington can mix themselves up with that damned socialist crew—But apart from politics, what sort of a man is Torrington?"

"I never saw him," said Frank. "I've been at school, you know, Uncle Lucius."

"Quite so, quite so. But your father now. Your father must know him intimately. I know he's rich, immensely rich. American mother, American wife, dollars to burn, which makes it all the harder to understand his politics. But his private life—what does your father think of him?

"Last time father stopped there," said Frank, "he was called in the morning by a footman who asked him whether he'd have tea, coffee or chocolate. Father said tea. 'Assam, Oolong, or Sooching, sir,' said the footman, 'or do you prefer your tea with a flavour of Orange Pekoe?'"

"By gad!" said Sir Lucius.

"That's the only story I've ever heard father tell about him," said Frank, "but they say——"

"That he has the devil of a temper." said Sir Lucius, "and rides roughshod over every one? I've been told that."

"Father never said so."

"Quite right. He wouldn't, couldn't in fact It wouldn't be the thing at all. The fact is, Frank, that Torrington's coming here tomorrow, wired from Dublin to say so. He and Lady Torrington. I can't imagine what he wants here. I'd call it damned insolence in any one else, knowing what I must think of his rascally politics, what every decent man thinks of them. But of course he's a kind of cousin. I suppose he recollected that. And he's a pretty big pot. Those fellows invite themselves, like royalty. But I don't know what the devil to do with him, and your aunt's greatly upset. She says it's against her principles to be decently civil to a man who's treated women the way Torrington has."

"If the women had let him alone——" said Frank, "I know. I know. One of them boxed his ears or something, pretty girl, too, I hear; but that only makes it worse. That sort of thing would get any man's back up. But your aunt—that is to say, my sister—doesn't see that. That's the worst of strong principles. You never can see when your own side is in the wrong. But it makes it infernally awkward Torrington's coming here just now. And Lady Torrington! It upsets us all. I wonder what the devil he's coming here for?"

"I don't know," said Frank. "Could he be studying the Irish question? Isn't there some Home Rule Bill or something? Father said next year would be an Irish year."

"That's it. That must be it. Now I wonder who he expects me to have to dinner to meet him. There's no use my wiring to Thormanby to come over for the night. He wouldn't do it. Simply loathes the name of Torrington. Besides, I don't suppose Thormanby is the kind of man he wants to meet. He'd probably rather hear Brannigan or some one of that sort talking damned Nationalism. But I can't ask Brannigan, really can't, you know, Frank. I might have O'Hara, that's the doctor. I don't suppose my sister would mind now. She quite dropped Christian Science as soon as she heard Torrington was coming. But I don't know. O'Hara drinks a bit."

Sir Lucius sat much longer than usual in the dining-room. Frank found himself yawning with uncontrollable frequency. The long day on the sea had made him very sleepy. He did his best to disguise his condition from his uncle, but he felt that his answers to the later questions about Lord Torrington were vague, and he became more and more confused about Sir Lucius' views of Woman Suffrage. One thing alone became clear to him. Sir Lucius was not anxious to join his sister in the drawingroom. Frank entirely shared his feeling.

But in this twentieth century it is impossible for gentlemen to spend the whole evening in the dining-room. Wine drinking is no longer recognised as a valid excuse for the separation of the sexes and tobacco is so universally tolerated that men carry their cigarettes into the drawingroom on all but the most ceremonial occasions. Sir Lucius rose at last.

"It's very hot," said Frank. "May I sit out for a while on the terrace, Uncle Lucius, before I go into the drawingroom. I'd like a breath of fresh air."

He hobbled out and found a hammock chair not far from the drawingroom window. The voices of Miss Lentaigne and his uncle reached him, the one high-pitched and firm, the other, as he imagined, apologetic and deprecatory. The sound of them, the words being indistinguishable, was somewhat soothing. Frank felt as the poet Lucretius did when from the security of a sheltered nook on the side of a cliff he watched boats tossing on the sea. The sense of neighbouring strain and struggle added to the completeness of his own repose. A bed of mignonette scented the air agreeably. Some white roses glimmered faintly in the twilight Far off, a grey still shadow, lay the bay. Frank's cigarette dropped, half smoked, from his fingers. He slept deliciously.

A few minutes later he woke with a start Priscilla stood over him. She was wrapt from her neck to her feet in a pale blue dressing-gown. Her hair hung down her back in a tight plait. On her feet were a pair of well worn bedroom slippers. The big toe of her right foot had pushed its way through the end of one of them.

"I say, Cousin Frank, are you awake? I've been here for hours, dropping small stones on your head, so as to rouse you up. I daren't make any noise, for they're still jawing away inside and I was afraid they'd hear me. Could you struggle along a bit further away from the window? I'll carry your chair."

They found a nook behind the rose-bed which Priscilla held to be perfectly safe. Frank settled down on his chair. Priscilla, with her knees pulled up to her chin, sat on a cushion at his feet.

"Aunt Juliet hunted me off to bed at half-past nine," she said. "Dastardly tyranny! And she sent Mrs. Geraghty to do my hair—not that she cared if my hair was never done, but so as to make sure that I really undressed. Plucky lot of good that was!"

The precaution had evidently been of no use at all; but neither Miss Lentaigne nor Mrs. Geraghty could have calculated on Priscilla's roaming about the grounds in her dressing-gown.

"The reason of the tyranny," said Priscilla, "was plain enough. Aunt Juliet was smoking a cigarette."

"Good gracious!" said Frank. "I should never have thought your aunt smoked."

"She doesn't. She never did before, though she may take to it regularly now for a time. I simply told her that she oughtn't to chew the end. No real smoker does; and I could see that she didn't like the wads of tobacco coming off on her tongue. Besides, it was beastly waste of the cigarette. She chawed off quite as much as she smoked. You'd have thought she'd have been obliged to me for giving her the tip, but quite the contrary. She hoofed me off to bed."

"But what has made her take to smoking?"

"She had to," said Priscilla. "I don't think she really likes it, but with her principles she simply had to. It's part of what's called the economic independence of women and she wants to dare the Prime Minister to put her in gaol. I don't suppose he will, at least not unless she does something worse than that; but that's what she hopes. You know, of course, that the Prime Minister is coming tomorrow."

"It's not the Prime Minister," said Frank, "only Lord Torrington."

"That'll be a frightful disappointment to Aunt Juliet after sending down to Brannigan's for those cigarettes. Rose—she's the under housemaid—told me that. Beastly cigarettes they are, too. Rose said the footman said he wouldn't smoke them. Ten a penny or something like that. But if Lord Torrington isn't the Prime Minister what is Aunt Juliet doing out the long gallery?"

"Lord Torrington is rather a boss," said Frank, "though he's not the Prime Minister. He's the head of the War Office."

Priscilla whistled.

"Great Scott," she said, "the head of the War Office! And Aunt Juliet hasn't the least idea what's bringing him down here. She said so twice."

"So did Uncle Lucius. He kept wondering after dinner what on earth Lord Torrington wanted."

"But we know," said Priscilla. "This is what I call real sport. I have her jolly well scored off now for sending me to bed. I shouldn't wonder if they made you a knight It's pretty well the least they can do."

"What are you talking about? I don't know what's bringing him here unless it's something to do with Home Rule."

"Who cares about Home Rule? What he's coming for is the spies. Didn't you say that this Torrington man is the head of the War Office? What would bring him down here if it isn't German spies? And we're the only two people who know where those spies are. Even we don't quite know; but we will tomorrow. Just fancy Aunt Juliet's face when we march them up here in the afternoon, tied hand and foot with the anchor rope, and hand them over to the War Office. We shall be publicly thanked, of course, besides your knighthood, and our names will be in all the papers. Then if Aunt Juliet dares to tell me ever again to go to bed at half past nine I shall simply grin like a dog and run about through the city. She won't like that. You're quite, sure, Cousin Frank, that it really is the War Office man who's coming?"

"Uncle Lucius told me it was Lord Torrington, and I know he's the head of the War Office because my father's the under-secretary."

"That's all right, then. I was just thinking that it would be perfectly awful if we captured the spies and it turned out that he wasn't the man who was after them."

"He may not be after them," said Frank. "It doesn't seem to me a bit likely that he is. You see, Priscilla, my father has a lot to do with the War Office and I know he rather laughs at this spy business."

"That's probably to disguise his feelings. Spies are always kept dead secrets and if possible not let into the newspapers. Perhaps even your father hasn't been told. He doesn't appear to be head boss, and they mightn't mention it to him. That's what makes it such an absolutely gorgeous scoop for us. We'll get off as early as we can tomorrow. You couldn't start before breakfast, could you? The tide will be all right."

"I could, of course, if you don't mind wheeling me down again in that bath-chair."

"Not a little bit I'll get hold of Rose before I go to bed, and tell her to call us. Rose is the only one in the house I can really depend on. She hates Aunt Juliet like poison ever since that time she had the bad tooth. We can pick up some biscuits and things at Brannigan's as we pass. There's a good chunk of cold salmon somewhere, for we only ate quite a small bit at dinner tonight I'll nail it if I can keep awake till the cook's in bed, but I don't know can I. This kind of excitement makes me frightfully sleepy. I suppose it's what's called reaction. Sylvia Courtney had it terribly after the English literature prize exam. It was headaches with her and general snappishness of temper. Sleepiness is worse in some ways, though not so bad for the other people. However, I'll do the best I can, and if we don't get the cold salmon we'll just have to do without."

She rose from her cushion, stretched herself and yawned unrestrainedly. Then she rubbed both eyes with her knuckles.

"Priscilla," said Frank, "before you go I wish you'd tell me——"

"Yes. What?"

"Do you really believe those two people we saw today are German spies?"

"Do you mean, really and truly in the inmost bottom of my heart?"

"Yes."

"Well, I don't, of course. It would be too good to be true if they were. But I mean to go on pretending. Don't you?"

"Oh, yes, I'll pretend. I only wanted to know what you thought."

"All the same," said Priscilla, "they did rather scoot when they saw we were after them. Nobody can deny that. That may be because they're pretending, too. I daresay they find it pretty dull being stuck on an island all day, though, of course, it must be rather jolly cooking your own food and washing up plates in the sea. Still they may be tired of that now, and glad enough to pretend to be German spies with us pursuing them. It must be just as good sport for them trying to escape as it is for us trying to catch them. I daresay it's even better, being stalked unwaveringly by a subtle foe ought to give them a delicious creepy feeling down the back. Anyhow we'll track them down. We're much better out of this house tomorrow. It'll be like the tents of Kedar. You and I might be labouring for peace, but everybody else will be making ready for battle. Aunt Juliet will be out for blood the moment she catches sight of the Prime Minister. Good night, Cousin Frank."



CHAPTER XI

Rose, the under housemaid, with the recollection of the scientifically Christian method of treating her toothache fresh in her mind and therefore stimulated by a strong desire to annoy Miss Lentaigne, woke at five a.m. At half past five she called Priscilla and knocked at Frank's door. Priscilla was fully dressed ten minutes later. Frank appeared in the yard at five minutes to six. They started as the stable clock struck six, Priscilla wheeling the bath-chair. Rose yawning widely, watched them from the scullery window.

Priscilla had failed to seize the cold salmon the night before. Rose, foraging early in the morning, with the fear of the cook before her eyes, had secured nothing but half a loaf of bread and a square section of honey. It was therefore something of a disappointment to find that Brannigan's shop was not open when they reached the quay. No biscuits or tinned meats could be bought. Many adventurers would have been daunted by the prospect of a long day's work with such slender provision. It is recorded, for instance, of Julius Caesar, surely the most eminent adventurer of all history, that he hesitated to attempt an expedition against one of the tribes of Gaul "propter inopiam pecuniae," which may very well be translated "on account of a shortage of provisions." But Julius Caesar, at the period of his greatest conquests, was a middle-aged man. He had lost the first careless rapture of youth. Frank and Priscilla, because their combined ages only amounted to thirty-two years, were more daring than Caesar. With a fine faith in the providence which feeds adventurers, they scorned the wisdom which looks dubiously at bread and honey. They did not hesitate at all.