"Go back to your friends, you scoundrel," whispered Mr Frewen; "you have come to spy upon us!" "Wheer's my lantern, then? Man can't spy a night like this, when it's as black as inside a water-cask in a ship's hold." "Mr Frewen is right," I said. "Go back to your friends." "Arn't got none forrard, leastwise only two; I've come to say `how de do.'" "Don't trust him, Mr Frewen, he's a traitor," I whispered; only Hampton evidently heard. "Come, I like that, Mr Dale, sir. But I say, how could you be so easily took in? Theer was nothing else for a man to do but to go with the bad beggars, and when I seemed to jyne 'em, why of course Neb Dumlow and old Barney joined at once." "Bob!" I ejaculated, as a feeling of delight sent a flush of blood to my cheeks, and I felt hot and excited once more, "you don't mean to say that--" "But I just do, sir. 'Tarn't likely I should run all this risk if I didn't mean it." "You hear, Mr Frewen," I whispered. "Yes, but--" "Look here," said Bob Hampton, angrily, "am I to creep in and stuff something into your mouth, Mr Dale, sir? You don't know how sounds run on a still night like this. It's grim death for me if I'm found out." "Then you are true to us all the same, Bob?" I cried, reaching out to lay my hand upon the man's shoulder. "True as gorspel, sir; and ready along with Neb Dumlow and Barney Blane to pitch old Frenchy overboard, or drown him in a water-cask, if you say the word, or Mr Frewen either, though I'd rayther take it from you, my lad, as you're one of the officers of the Burgh Castle and it'd come better like than from our doctor, and no disrespectment either." "How are we to know that we are to trust you, Hampton?" said Mr Frewen. "Tell you dreckly, sir, soon as I can get foot-hold. I'm pretty strong in the arms, but you can't hang by them as long as you can stand on your legs, 'less you're born a monkey, which I warn't. You see there's no board nor nothing to get a foot on, and I knows without trying that I couldn't get through that window." "How can we help him, Dale?" whispered Mr Frewen. "I suppose we must trust him?" "Trust him? Yes, of course. Stop a moment. Yes, I know." Then thrusting my arms out--"Hold hard a minute, Bob," I whispered. "Let me get hold of the rope and haul up the end." "What for, lad?" "For us to draw in here and make fast, then you can stand in the bight like a stirrup." "Well, you are a wunner, Mr Dale, sir," he replied. "Haul away, there's plenty down below; I should never have thought of that." In a very few seconds I had pulled in the lower part of the rope by which he was swinging, got hold of the dripping end and passed it to Mr Frewen, letting the rest fall back like a big loop, but not so quietly as I could have wished. Then we hauled in slowly, till after a little management we had the bight so exactly adjusted that Bob Hampton's feet rested upon it while we held the rope tight.