William Long at once promised to look after the supper, and Mike hurried away after Harry and his companion. These had, however, too far a start to be overtaken, and when he reached the wharf he saw a boat rowed by two men, and having two sitters in the stern. It was already some distance from shore, and appeared to be proceeding toward a vessel which lay at anchor several hundred yards further out from the shore than the others. "Can you tell me," he asked a sailor, "whether that ship lying there is the Royalist?" "That is the name she goes by to-day," the sailor said, "for as I rowed past her this morning on my way from fishing, I saw the name newly painted on her stern. They have put it on her boat too, which you now see rowing toward her, and which has been lying by the pier all day, in readiness to take out any one who might wish to go off to her." "But have they changed her name, then?" Mike asked. "What have they been doing that for?" "She has been called the Covenant for the last two years," the sailor said. "But I suppose Johnny Campbell, her master, thought the other more suited to the times." The name of the captain at once aroused Mike's uneasiness to the fullest. "Tell me," he said, "good fellow, did that ship arrive this morning from Holland?" "From Holland!" repeated the sailor. "No. She came down the coast from the north three days ago, with beasts for the army." Mike stood for a moment thunderstruck. Then, without a word to the sailor, he turned and ran back at full speed through the town up to the camp. At a headlong pace he made his way through the camp until he stopped at the tent of General Leslie. He was about to rush in without ceremony when the sentinel stopped his way. "Please let me pass," he panted. "I would see the general on a matter of the utmost importance." The sentries laughed. "You don't suppose," one of them said, "that the general is to be disturbed by every barefooted boy who wants to speak to him. If you have aught to say, you must speak first to the lieutenant of the guard." "Every moment is of importance," Mike urged. "It is a matter of life and death. I tell you I must see the general." Then at the top of his voice he began to shout, "Sir David Leslie! Sir David Leslie!" "Silence there, young varmint, or I will wring thy neck for thee!" exclaimed the soldier, greatly scandalized, seizing Mike and shaking him violently. But the boy continued to shout out at the top of his voice, "Sir David Leslie! Sir David Leslie!" CHAPTER XXII. KIDNAPED. Unable to silence Mike's shouts, the scandalized guards began dragging him roughly from the spot, cuffing him as they went. But the door of the tent opened, and General Leslie appeared. "What means all this unseemly uproar?" he asked.