"And Sir John?" he said. "Where is he?" "I left him at Ashford," I muttered. "It is a lie!" he cried in a voice that thrilled me to the marrow. "You did not leave him at Ashford! He was with you on the beach--he was with you and you deserted him! You left him to be taken, and saved yourself. You wretch! You Judas!" God knows by what intuition he spoke. For me, I swear that it was not until that moment, not until he had put the possibility into words that I knew--ay, knew, for that was the only word, so certain was I after the event--that the man who had ridden down the beach and called vainly on the sailors to wait, the man from whom we had rowed away laughing, taking with us his last hope of life, was not Matthew Smith, but Sir John Fenwick! _Now_, things which should have opened my eyes then, and had not, came back to me. I recalled how tall and gaunt the rider had looked through the haze, and a something novel in his voice, and plaintive in his tone. True, I had heard the click-clack of Smith's horse's shoes as clearly as I ever heard anything in my life; but if Sir John, alarmed by the sound of my hasty departure, and fearing treachery, had sallied out, and leaping on the first horse he found, had ridden after me, then all was clear. I saw that, and cowered before the men's accusing eyes: so that they had been more than Solomons had they taken my sudden disorder for aught but guilt--guilt brought home. For Birkenhead, his rage was terrible. He seized me by the throat, and disregarding my pitiful pleas that I had not known, I had not known, he dragged me from the berth, and made as if he would choke me there and then with his naked hands. Instead, however, he suddenly loosed me. "Faugh," he cried; "I will not dirty my hands with you! That such as you--_you_ should be a man's death! _You!_ But you shall not escape. Gill, up with him! Up with him and to the yard-arm. String him up! He shall swing before he is an hour older!" "In Dunquerque harbour?" said the other. "Why not?" "Why not?" said the master. "Because, Mr. Birkenhead, I serve a King _de jure_ and not _de facto_. That is why not. And if you want another reason----" "Well?" "I am not aware that His Majesty has raised you to the Bench," the master answered sturdily. "Oh, you have turned sea-lawyer, have you?" "Law is law," said the shipmaster. "England, or France, or the high seas." "And owling is owling!" the other retorted with passion. "And smuggling, smuggling! You are a fine man to talk! If you will not hang him--as they will hang Fenwick, so help me, never doubt it!--what will you do with him?" "Give my men a bag of sand apiece, and let him run the gauntlet," the captain answered, with a phlegm that froze me. "Trust me, sir, they will not leave much of a balance owing."