Once out of the dim-lit innyard, darkness engulfed them, but Sir Hector strode unhesitatingly; along narrow streets he led them, beneath the grim shadow of frowning archways and buildings, through a maze of winding alleys and ill-paved byways, turning sudden corners until, all at once, they were treading firm sand and there met them a wind fresh and sweet with the salt tang of the sea. Presently before them, vague in the gloom, was a small bay or inlet with a jetty, and beyond this the dim bulk of a ship, a very silent craft with never a glimmer of light from stem to stern. “John, bide ye here!” said Sir Hector softly, and strode forward, to vanish in the dark; then rose a sweet, flute-like whistle rendering the first bars of “Blue Bonnets over the Border,” which was answered, after a little, by a hoarse voice in English: “Be that your honour?” “Aye, aye, Sharkie man, wi’ twa friends. Send the boat!” “Nay, I be comin’ myself, sir!” Followed a scrambling, scuffling sound, the dip of oars, creak of rowlocks and a mutter of voices, then Sir Hector called softly: “This way, John.” With his companion’s hand in his, Sir John advanced cautiously until, above the stones of the jetty, at his very feet, he visioned the dim outline of a human head that admonished him thus: “Gi’e’s a holt o’ the young ’ooman, sir, an’ easy it is!” Here my lady manifested very decided unwillingness to be taken a “holt of”, but was swung suddenly aloft in compelling arms, passed below to other arms and safely deposited in the stern-sheets of a swaying boat; then the others followed in turn, and they pushed off. Half a dozen strokes brought them to the side of a fair-sized vessel, and very soon my lady found herself set on deck, her hand securely tucked within Sir John’s arm. “Perfect!” he exclaimed, glancing aloft at dim-seen, raking masts. “But wherefore all this stealth and secrecy, Hector?” “Whisht, man! Wha’ gars ye tae say sic things o’ honest fusher-folk? Ye’re aboard the _True Believer_, Johnnie lad, juist a bit fushin’-boat out o’ Newhaven.” “She’s something large and heavily sparred for a fishing-boat, isn’t she, Hector?” “Gude sakes, John, and wha’ d’ye ken o’ fushin’-boats whateffer?” “The _True Believer_? ’Tis a strange name!” “’Tis a graund, godly name, John, an’ she’s owned by a godly man, a man as sings bass in the church choir, a worthy fushin’-body, as I ken fine. Dinna fash ye’self, John lad; wi’ luck an’ a favourin’ wind we should be ashore a little after dawn.” “Why, then, this fishing-boat doth not fish to-night, Hector?” “I’m no’ tellin’ ye she will.” “But, Hector, if a fishing-boat fisheth not then fishing-boat she cannot be except she fish for other than fish, and yet, so fishing, she fisheth not truly, and truly can be no true fishing-boat——” But finding Sir Hector had vanished, he drew his companion into a corner well screened from the wind, and here, despite the dark, contrived a seat with canvas and a coil of rope.