CHAPTER XLVIII

THE DOXIE'S DAUGHTER

I

The boy's long face, anxious before, grew haggard now.

It wore the look of one with the enthusiasms of a saint across whose path Sin, the Insurmountable, has fallen suddenly.

"We're done," he said, husky and white.

His words revived the other. True man that he was, despair in the boy's heart quickened the courage in his own.

"Never say die till you're dead," he cried, squaring his shoulders-- "that's the Englishman's motto."

His spirit rose to meet the occasion.

"Our theatrical friend outside there's no fool. But--but--but! there's just one element he's not reckoned with."

"What?" cried Kit, hanging on his words.

The Parson dropped head and voice.

"Who saved you from the _Tremendous_?" he whispered. "Who handed you up a cliff a goat couldn't climb?--who brought you to this house? --who put the flag-idea into your head, and brought it off?"

The Parson's words made sudden confusion in the lad's mind. It came to him with a shock of surprise to find such triumphant faith in this ruddy fighting-man.

"And why d'you think of all the houses in the world He sent you to this one?" the other continued.

"Because of you, sir."

The Parson frowned, and approached his lips to the lad's ear.

"_Because it's got a secret passage!_"

This most matter-of-fact explanation flashed the laughter to the boy's eyes.

"I mean it," said the other earnestly. "Ain't you noticed anything about the floor of the kitchen?"

"It sounds hollow."

"It is hollow. It's built over an old decoy-pond."

In a few words the Parson outlined the history of the secret passage.

A water-way had led from decoy-pond to sea. The sea had gone back and left the water-way and pond high and dry. Sixty years back a sly old sea-dog had built this lonely cottage over the pond. He had covered the water-way and made a drain of it. Thus he had secured a secret passage to the sea, and the cottage had become the receiving depôt of Ruxley's crew.

"Where does it lead to?" asked the boy, all eyes.

"Out into the creek we crossed on the way to the Wish."

"And how many people know about it?"

"Three. One's you; one's me; one's the son of the man who built the cottage--and that's old Piper down below there.... It's not been used for forty years. The sea went back and back, and the creek's been dry these years past."

Kit's knees invited him to prayer. This was not chance; it was not coincidence.

"You're right, sir," said the boy chokily. "He's in it."

"And what's more He's going to get us out," replied the Parson, cheerfully matter-of-fact.

The boy was slipping off his coat.

"I'd better start at once. There's not a second to lose. Nelson may sail this evening."

The Parson laid a kind hand on the lad's shoulder.

"The boy's as greedy for glory as Nelson himself," he laughed. "But the Navy can't do it _all_, you know. Give _us_ a chance.... When we've got the best pair of legs South of Thames trained to a tick, and fighting mad for their chance, we may as well use em."

Kit gasped.

"Nipper Knapp!" and added in a flash, "May I go with him, sir?"

"To the mouth of the drain," said the Parson. "No further."

II

He turned about.

"Blob, come here. Keep a sharp look-out at this window, and give a holloa if anything stirs. You can sing em a little song, if you know one to keep em quiet."

He slid down into the twilight of the kitchen. There only the old foretop-man was to be seen, patient at his post of watch.

"Where's Knapp, Piper?"

"Why, sir, in the cellar. Wanted to be alone with his trouble, I reck'n. Tarrabul down-earted, the poor lad be."

"I'll cheer him up," cried the Parson, and disappeared through an open trap-door into the night beneath. "Nipper Knapp! Nipper Knapp, my boy!"

In two minutes he was back.

Knapp was at his heel, sparring playfully at the back of the other's head.

True, for the broken heart there is no such cure as action or the hope of it.

As they emerged into the twilight of the kitchen a voice, pure as a rivulet's, poured down in song upon them from above.

From outside came a gust of laughter, and then a roaring chorus.

"By the Lord!" thundered the Parson. "It's The Doxie's Daughter."

"And the Gap Gang singing choir!" said Piper grimly. "Likely it'll be the only hymn they knaw."

"One moment, Master Blob!" muttered the Parson between clenched teeth. "I'll swab that boy's soul clean if I have to do it with a scrubbing-brush.... Now, Knapp, ready yourself, while I write a note to the Commandant."

Knapp tore off his coat, and began to fight an exhibition battle with a ghost in the corner.

"Will ye fight the lot then, Jack?" chuckled old Piper.

"Ay, and wop em, too!" cried the little man, dodging, ducking. "Ave a slap at em first, and then go through--that's my idee."

"It's not mine, though!" roared the Parson, catching him a rousing kick. "Get on with your undressing, d your eyes!"

He finished his note and folded it.

"And now for the sweet little cherub that sits up aloft."

III

He ran nimbly up the ladder, Kit at his heels.

The chorister had ceased his song.

Through the half-stuffed dormer, light streamed in on the white-washed wall, the cobwebs, rafters, and Polly in the corner, shining demure.

"Now where the dooce has that boy got?" muttered the Parson, looking round.

Kit pointed.

In the darkest corner, under the slope of the roof, stood an apple-barrel. Out of it two frog-like legs thrust and kicked with the action of one swimming. A protuberance crowned the rim of the barrel. Body, head, and arms were lost.

The Parson whipped up Polly.

"One for yourself!" he roared, prodding the boy's bad eminence, "and one for The Doxie's Daughter!"

"Hoi! that's Blo-ub!" yelled a muffled voice. Two hands shot out and plastered themselves over the stimulated part. There was a wriggle. Then Blob stood before them, touzled, pink, his ears wide, an apple tight between his teeth.

"D'you call that keeping a look-out?" thundered the Parson.

"Oi wur lookin out," said Blob, dogged and sullen.

"Then you keep your eyes where few of us do."

"Oi thart oi yerd a Frenchie in the bar'l," said Blob in the slow and undulating voice of Sussex. "Oi went fur to fetch un out, when a tarrabul great oarse-fly settled on ma butt-end and stung her."

"It was no horse-fly," replied the Parson. "It was my dear lady. Now, don't bother to think of any more lies, my lad, but just take that lantern from the wall, and go below. We'll join you in a minute."

IV

The Parson pulled aside the hanging mattress, and peeped seaward.

"Come here, boy. I want to show you the lie of the land. D'you see that chap in blue knickers in the shade of the sycamores?--he's the Gap Gang sentry. They're camped somewhere behind the knoll, the main of them. That's their smoke you see among the trees."

That roaring chorus still rang in the boy's ear.

"The drain runs to the right of the knoll, and out into the creek bang opposite the Wish. Half-way down it there's a man-hole."

An icy pang pierced Kit's heart.

"It's quite small, and a bush grows over it. It's a million to one they know nothing of it. Still you should--er--watch it."

The Parson was gnawing his under-lip.

"I'll watch it," said the boy, the waves breaking white about his face.

It must be somewhere just about the man-hole that Fat George and Co. were camped. Still he wasn't going to let this soldier know he was afraid.

But the soldier knew.

Outwardly calm, his own heart was a whirlpool of doubts. How could he stop behind a wall and send this lad out into the open to face heaven knew what? Yet here surely his obvious duty lay. Should the enemy storm, what could a legless old sailor and a brace of boys do against them? And unless he was mistaken mischief was brewing. Where was the Gentleman all this time? Yesterday he had been everywhere all the time. To-day the Parson had caught but one fleeting glimpse of him. The old soldier preferred his enemy's activity to his quiet. Was this the lull before the storm?

"I only want you to go to the mouth of the drain, and see him off," he said with calm cheerfulness. "Once away, you'd only hamper him."

That was truth at all events. Once away, Knapp's chance lay in his feet. With luck the little man'd be in Lewes in an hour and a half. With luck a good man on a good horse'd be in Chatham before night, another at the Admiralty, a third at Merton,--that was, if Beau Beauchamp would leave his actress for the moment to play the man. With luck Nelson wouldn't have sailed.

Lots of luck, true! still, who was it was on their side?

The fog of his doubts cleared away.

He turned to the boy with glowing eyes.

"Kit," he whispered, hugging the lad's arm, "we'll have a Gazette to ourselves yet."

THE SALLY

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