"Because we grappled for the sunk crop two days arter ’twas sunk, but ’twas gone; yet ’twas more than a week arterwards afore the stuff was carr’d into the country, so it must ha’ been hid somewhere. Well, we had waited some hours, and the cutter had sailed away down the coast to put ’em off the scent, when just afore six bells we heard the creakin’ o’ the lugger’s gear, and I knowed I was right. At the same time the fellers come creepin’ round the cliff from the village. ’Twas to be a run arter all. Our plan was to let ’em get warm to work, and not pounce on ’em till we’d seed where their hiding-place was. Mr. Mildmay meant to fetch about and come on ’em from seaward, while the sojers took ’em from landwards. "Drown it all, ’twas ruined—ruined, I say; but ’twas not so bad as that neither—’twas almost ruined, by a sappy landlubber of a sojer. The unloadin’ was goin’ on as merry as you please when this soft stunpoll of a chap let out a sneeze fit to blow yer gaff off. ’Twas all up then; no good waiting for Mr. Mildmay; the smugglers’ look-outs heard the tishum and gave the alarm. Mr. Polwhele blew his whistle for the attack, and we pounced out from our lairs, sojers and tidesmen, and dashed upon ’em from two sides at once. "Some of ’em dropped their tubs like hot taters, and slipped off in the darkness. But the rest stood their ground like men, and there was a tidy little tumble, pistols cracking, cutlasses flashing——" "How could they flash in the dark?" said Dick. "You could hear ’em if you couldn’t see ’em, and I don’t care who the man is, I call that flashin’. There was some pretty wounds dinted on both sides, but as ’ee med think, the sojers’ swordplay was a trifle more learned than the free-traders’, and arter some time we King’s men got the better o’t, and they couldn’t stand against us no longer. But that sneeze: why couldn’t the feller clap it under for five minutes more? We catched nine of the smugglers, and laid them tied hand and foot on the beach. But the rest got away, and drown it all, Tonkin was one of ’em. I knowed un by his size, and a sojer and I and some more had him betwixt us, but he let out with those sledge-hammer fists of his, spun a sojer this way and a tidesman that, and by long and short broke his moorings and swam out to the lugger. If that sneeze hadn’t come so soon Mr. Mildmay would have been there with the cutter, and we should ha catched the whole crew. But ’twas not to be. By the time the cutter fetched up, the lugger was well out to sea, and we lost her. But we’ve got the nine men, who’ll have to choose betwixt gaol and the King’s service, and I’ve chalked the broad arrow on twenty-four tubs, which be now half-way to the King’s store at St. Ives." "And did you discover the hiding-place?" "Chok’ it all, we did not. Maybe there’s no such thing. But ’twas a proper tit-for-tat for the knock they give me, and I reckon ’twill be some time afore they fly their colours again."