From Kingdom to Colony
of the doings I've seen on this rock, and out there on the water."
"By the Holy Poker!" Dorothy exclaimed, bent upon keeping up the part
she had assumed. "But you talk as if you were the Lord High Cockalorum
himself! Who are you, to say what you do and do not like here, on my
father's premises?"
"Never mind who I am. Perhaps I can make more trouble for your father
and his household than you are able to understand. But answer what I
have asked, and you'll not be sorry."
Dorothy could not fail to note the earnestness with which he spoke, nor
the intent look she felt rather than saw in the dim light. But she met
all this with a mocking air and tone as she said, "Since you make it so
worth my while to be kind to my neighbors, how know you but I might see
fit to tell you an untruth, and say my name was Devereux, when it may
be Robinson, or anything else?"
"If this is your father's estate, then your name must be Devereux,"
Southorn asserted; "for the place is owned by one Joseph Devereux, as I
have been told. So there's an end to your telling me anything
misleading. And now answer me this,--know you the one who is called
Mistress Dorothy Devereux?"
Dot waited a moment before answering. A new scheme had sprung into her
quick-witted brain,--one that promised an effective means of getting
rid of his embarrassing presence, this being likely to interfere
seriously with the landing of the arms and powder, were that still in
contemplation.
She was wondering, too, what had become of Mary Broughton, and what she
was doing all this time.
"Answer me," the young Britisher repeated sharply, "do you know her?"
And he gave a shake to the arm he still held.
"You seem over-fond of shaking folk, sir," she remonstrated. "I wish
you'd let go my arm." And she pulled it impatiently.
"I will let it go at once, if you'll only tell me what I wish to know."
"And what may that be?" she asked, with an innocent _sang-froid_ that
plainly angered him.
"You are a saucy boy," he said impatiently. "You remember well enough
what I asked you. Do you know Mistress Dorothy Devereux?"
"Aye," was the quick reply; "I know her as well as you know your own
face that you see in the glass every day." She stood rubbing the arm
he had now released, and upon which his grip had been unpleasantly firm.
"Ah--then she is your sister." He had moved so as to stand directly in
front of the slight figure, whose head reached but half-way up his own
broad chest.
She looked at him for a second and then burst into laughter.
"I know you now," she said. "You must be the Britisher she told of
this morning,--the one who came here, and whom Mary Broughton
frightened so badly that he fell over and cut his head." And again the
mocking laugh came from her ready lips.
"I don't believe your sister told you any such untruth," said the
irritated young man. "I missed my footing, and fell; that was all. I
meant no rudeness, although the lady you name--Mary Broughton, did you
call her?--seemed not to believe me."
"Mary has but little taste for a redcoat," was the dry retort.
"And judging from your own tone, you share her taste," he said, now
quite good-naturedly, for he found himself taking a strong liking to
this bright, free-speaking lad.
"I? Oh, I don't know," was the careless answer. "Do you not think I
am somewhat too young to have much of an opinion upon such matters?"
He smiled, but without replying. Then Dot came closer to him and said
in a low voice, "At any rate, I am good-natured enough to say I can
show you something that you, being His Majesty's officer, had best know
about."
"What is it?" the young man asked. He was now looking around for his
hat, which, together with the bandage about his head, had fallen off
during his struggle with the pedler.
Dorothy's sharp eyes were the first to catch sight of these; and she
picked them up and handed them to him, noting with an odd feeling that
he placed the bandage inside his coat and over his heart.
"It is something you may or may not care to see," she replied. "Only
I'll warrant you'll be sorry if another reports it first; for I shall
show it to the next Britisher who comes this way."
"Very well," he said; "let me see it."
Without further parley, and suspecting a nest of concealed firearms, or
something of the like, he followed her down the rocks, going with slow
caution, while she went more rapidly and soon stood below, waiting for
him. And then, side by side, they set off inland.
Dorothy, skirting as closely as was prudent the woods where she
reckoned Mary was still hiding, took care to remark to her companion,
in a voice loud enough to reach her friend's ears, that it would not
take over ten minutes to reach their destination, and that then he had
best go his own way.
CHAPTER XIV
Mary Broughton was where Dorothy suspected her to be; and standing well
back among the deeper shadows, she had been straining her eyes to see
all that took place on the rocky platform above the cave.
She marvelled greatly at the lengthy converse Dorothy seemed to be
holding with the stranger, after Johnnie Strings disappeared over the
side of the rocks in the direction of Riverhead Beach; and she had
started out of the wood, half determined to go and meet the younger
girl, when she saw her leaving the peak.
A prudent afterthought led her to draw back again when she saw the two
forms swallowed up in the deeper darkness lying at the base of the
rocks. Then, hearing steps coming toward her hiding-place, she was on
the point of calling out, when Dorothy's words came to her ears, and
she remained silent, but still wondering what scheme her friend was
pursuing, and who was the stranger with whom she seemed to be upon such
excellent terms.
Then came the impulse that she had better find her way to the Black
Hole, and tell the waiting party of what had happened; and acting upon
this, she set out at once.
She had not gone very far when there came to her the sound of tramping
feet; and hastening to get out of the more open part of the wood, she
drew aside amongst the denser growth.
She now heard a low-pitched voice singing a snatch of an old song,
trolling it off in a rollicking fashion that bespoke the youth of the
singer,--
"We hunters who follow the chase, the chase,
Ride ever with care a race, a race.
We care not, we reck not--"
Here the song was silenced by another voice which Mary recognized as
that of Doak, an old fisherman, who growled: "Belay that 'ere pipin',
Bait. Hev ye no sense, thet ye risk callin' down the reg'lars on us
with such a roarin'?"
They were now quite near; and slipping out of the bushes, Mary called
out, "Doak, is that you?"
"Who be it?" he demanded quickly, while all the other men came to a
halt.
"It is I--Mary Broughton. Don't stop to question me, but listen to
what I have to tell you."
She told them in the briefest possible way of what had happened. And
in doing this, she deemed it wiser to tell them of Dorothy's disguise,
being fearful of what might befall the girl should the men chance to
meet her,--more especially as they would now be on the lookout for the
stranger, who was doubtless an ill wisher to their scheme.
Doak chuckled mightily over it all, particularly at Mary's description
of Dorothy kicking the lanterns off the rock; and several of the other
men gave hoarse utterance to their admiration.
"Ev'ry natur' be fitted for its own app'inted work," remarked old Doak,
dogmatically. "If Mistress Dorothy had not allers been darin', by the
natur' o' things, she'd never a ketched holt o' the right rope so true
an' quick as she hev this night,--God bless her!"
Here a younger voice broke in impatiently with, "But, Doak, we ought
n't to stand here chatterin' like this."
"True, true, Tommy Harris," the old man replied good-naturedly. "But,"
turning to Mary, "what shall ye do, Mistress Mary? Hed n't ye best let
one o' the boys tek ye to the house? Ye see we be goin' down to the
shore to Master John an' the rest of 'em, as was 'greed we should as
soon as we saw the 'Pearl' show her light."
Mary said she preferred to go with them. But the old man shook his
head, and his companions began to move onward.
"D'ye think 'twould be wise, mistress?" he asked gravely. "Ye see we
don't know jest what sort o' work we may find cut out for
us,--'specially if the man ye saw throttlin' Johnnie Strings were a
British spy, as belike he were, pretty sure." Then he added
impatiently, "I wonder where in tarnation Johnnie hev gone to, thet he
did n't cut back to tell us?"
"And I am wondering where Dorothy has gone," said Mary, with much
anxiety.
"I rather guess ye need hev no fear for her, mistress," Doak made haste
to reply. "She be wide awake, I'll bet my head, where'er she be."
"But it seems so strange a thing that she should go off in such
fashion," Mary said, by no means satisfied with the old man's confident
words.
"She went 'cause she wanted to go; an' she wanted to go 'cause she saw
work cut out to do, I warrant ye," declared Doak, with whom the girl
had always been a great favorite, since the days he used to take her
and Mary Broughton on fishing excursions in his boat. "But as to ye,
mistress--"
"It is this way, Doak," she said, interrupting him: "you see I cannot
get into the house until I find Dorothy; for she has the key of the
only door by which I could enter, except I disturbed every one."
"If ye did thet, Mistress Mary, the father would find out all 'bout the
prankin', eh?" And he chuckled knowingly.
"And so 't is best," she went on, paying no attention to him, "that I
go along with you until we can see Master John; and he will know what
to do."
"Very well, Mistress Mary," Doak said; "come 'long o' me, an' 't will
go hard with any man as seeks to molest ye,--though, from what Johnnie
Strings told me o' what ye did to the spyin' Britisher this mornin'--"
Here he stopped short, both in speech and walking,--for they had been
hurrying to overtake the others, now well in advance--and slapping his
thigh, exclaimed: "I hev it, I hev it! What a blind old fool I be, not
to hev thought o' thet afore! 'T were sure to be the same devil, or
some one he sent, thet ye saw fightin' with Johnnie Strings."
"Do you think so?" asked Mary, surprised that the thought had not
occurred to her before. "Whatever should make him come back there at
this hour of the night?"
"Spyin', mistress, spyin', as 't is the only business he an' his
soldiers be sent down to do hereabouts. Who can say how many of 'em be
lyin' 'round this minute, to jump on us?"
Mary glanced about apprehensively, and moved a little closer to the
sturdy fisherman's side.
They were now out of the woods, and could discern vaguely in the open
field before them the dark forms grouped near the shore, awaiting some
signal or sign that might bespeak the expected boats.
Mary and Doak joined the others, and they all stood in silence,
watching the black water, now streaked with a narrow bar of sullen red
from the eastern sky, where, out of a wild-looking cloud-bank, the moon
was just lifting a full, clear disk.
"Can ye see aught?" muttered one stalwart fellow to his nearest
neighbor,--the two standing near Mary and old Doak.
"Not I," was the low reply. "Mayhap they won't come at all now, since
seein' the lanterns go out."
"Whate'er be ye thinkin' on?" chimed in Doak. "Cap'n Brattle hev
brought the stuff down, fast 'nough; an' he won't be for carryin' it
over to Salem, under the Gov'nor's nose. 'T is to be brought here; an'
here, an' nowhere else, hev they got to land it. They'll only be more
on the lookout now--thet's all. They know us to be here, an' all they