"I wish I knew what was going on behind that shingle-bank," he grumbled, half to himself. The boy's soul quenched, only to flame forth again. "I'll be your eyes, sir!" The Parson shook a dubious head. "Oh let me! O do! sir! sir!" He was hopping, trembling at the other's side. The Parson with his slow and chewing mind was digesting the situation. Beneath his calm, he was mad to know what was going on behind the shingle-bank. If he went himself, who would be left in garrison?--the old story. Yet if he sent Kit? Twice already he had let the boy go forth alone, and each time had barely plucked him from the jaws of death. Could he send him forth a third time to face what God should send? Could he? He locked his jaws. Duty, duty, duty! a hard mistress for those who serve her, but the only one for an Englishman. His mind made up, true man that he was, he wasted no time in excusing himself to himself or to others. Somewhat grey about the jaws, he swung about. "Very well," shortly. "Just a peep--no more, mind!" CHAPTER LXIV RUMBLINGS OF THUNDER The boy slid down the ladder into the gloom of the kitchen. There was no familiar silver head at its wonted place of watch by the loop-hole. "Piper!" "Sir!" The old foretop-man was sitting beside the trapdoor, peering down into the blackness of the cellar, and listening intently. "That you, Master Kit? Would you step this way, sir? There keeps on a kind of a rumbling like in the drain--a'most as though the gentlemen be running a cargo. I ca'ant justly make it out." The boy came to his side and listened. True, there was a muffled noise of rolling in the drain, and dull banging against the door. Well, they might bang till they were blue: they would make as much impression on that door as the breeze on Beachy Head. The old man looked up and saw the lad beside him in shirt-sleeves. "Hullo, sir! what's forrad then?" "I'm going to take a little trot over to the shingle-bank to have a look round," said the boy, shivering. "I want you to stand by the door to let me out and in." The old man rolled up his sleeves, snatched his cutlass from the corner, whetted it with the easy grace of a bird whetting its beak, and spat on his hands. "Then it's stand by to repel boarders! Rithe away, sir, when you are." The Parson peered down. "All's quiet," he whispered. "Ready, Kit?" "Yes, sir." The boy stood up pale in the gloom. "Then ease those bolts away. Gently, Piper!" The old man opened quietly. A sweet wind stole in, and with it a flood of light. Kit peeped out. How naked it looked, how terrible! "One moment." He bent, untied his shoe-lace, and tied it up again. Upstairs it had seemed such an easy thing to dare this deed, so full of the poetry and romance of war. Down here, face to face with the bare fact, it was a different matter. A plank, as it were, had been thrust out from solid earth over Eternity; it was his to walk that plank; and he didn't like the job.