A ship like a picture, a deck trim and clean as a new pin, a hearty skipper with a nasal twang, his comely wife, his winsome daughter, and a smart, full-powered crew welcomed us forlorn and dilapidated derelicts on board the _Moses Taylor_. Circumstances prevented us from dressing for the Christmas dinner to which we--skipper, mate, and passenger--were presently bidden; but there were modified comfort and restored self-respect in the long unaccustomed wash in fresh water; and the hosts were more gracious than if we had been dressed more _comme il faut_. To this day I remember that first slice of roast turkey, that first slice of plum-pudding. But closer in my memory remain the cheery accents of the genial American skipper, the glow of kindness in the sonsy face of his wife, and the smile of mixed fun and compassion in the bright eyes of their pretty daughter. And there hung a spray of mistletoe in the cabin doorway of the _Moses Taylor_. ABSIT OMEN! CHAPTER I Edmund L’Estrange was a man who, because of his daring, his skill in devising, his self-possession, in no matter what situation, the influence he could exercise over his fellow-men, would probably have made a distinguished figure in the world if he pursued an honest and loyal career. Circumstances in a measure, and probably a natural bent toward plotting and duplicity, had made him what he was--a prominent man among the dark and dangerous conspirators who live, and who are ready to die, in the devilish cause of anarchy, and of whose machinations the communities of civilisation may well be more apprehensive than of the most widespread and prolonged war, or any other phase of unquietude with which the future of the world may be pregnant. Among his ancestors was that Sir Roger L’Estrange who was the earliest of all the vast tribe of British journalists, and whom Macaulay somewhat intolerantly denounced as a “scurrilous pamphleteer.” According to the doctrine of evolution, Sir Roger’s descendant should have been a broad-acred, narrow-minded, and pretentious squire, chief owner of a lucrative, dictatorial, but somewhat obsolete journal, a trimmer in politics, and ready to accept a peerage at the hands of any party caring to concede the dignity. But Edmund L’Estrange was an emphatic traversal of the Darwinian theory. In vigour, resource, and personal courage he harked back to the original L’Estrange who came over with the Conqueror, and who was the progenitor of a long line of gallant warriors. Wellington’s regiments in the Peninsula were fuller of L’Estranges than of Napiers. Guy L’Estrange’s stand with the 31st at Albuera contributed as much to the winning of that bloody battle as did the famous manœuvre which gained for Hardinge his earliest gleam of fame. Another L’Estrange escaped from the rock-dungeon of Bitche to fight at Orthez and Toulouse, and to meet a soldier’s death on the field of Waterloo.