The old man wheeled out to the edge of the shadow of the house. All about was black and silver in the moon. A faint breeze ruffled the sycamores upon the knoll. Stars strewed the heavens. Beyond the shingle-bank the sea glistened like satin. It was very still, very cold, very lonely. Kit set his teeth to prevent them chattering. The night air kissed him coldly, and the moon, white above the inky Downs, glistened on his shoulders. "There she lays, in the Channel off the Boulder Bank," whispered the old man, pointing to the privateer, dull-black against the glitter. "And it's my belieft there's not a sober man aboard of her. All stow'd away dead drunk under hatches--that's my belieft, sir. They kep it up from dark till midnight--dancin, drummin, fightin, and all manner. More like a cage full? wild beasties from Bedlam than a Christian ship. And for the last hour she might ha been a hulk full o corpuses." He dropped his voice still further. "He's in it, sure!" jerking his thumb starward. "Made em blind to the world for His own good purpose--which is as you should lay em aboard unbeknownst and knife the blessed lot if so be it was your fancy." The boy choked a laugh brimming on the edge of being. The old man's solemnity, his profound simplicity, touched the springs of mirth within him. "Perhaps," he panted. "I hope so." "Ah! I'm certain sure," replied the other with firm confidence. Faith, the most infectious quality in the world because the truest, seized the boy's heart and lifted it. "Good-bye, Piper." "Good luck, sir." The lad plunged into the moonlight. III A moon-clad wisp, he flitted across the greensward, the fringe of the flag-scarf fluttering behind him. It was a fine thing to do, but he wished devoutly somebody else had the doing of it. On the Wish in the sunshine, the Parson at his side, when the idea first struck him, it had seemed splendid. Now, alone in the dark, with the idea to translate into reality, he saw it very differently. It gave him no thrill of glory. He felt exactly as he had felt last March on the way to the dentist to have a tooth out--a mean sense of his own mortality, and an earnest desire to run away. The turf shaded off into long bents growing out of sand; and that again ran away into shingle. As he breasted the bank, his hands succouring his feet, he heard steps behind him. "Who's that?" he snarled, crouching. Blob was standing at gaze a little way behind him. "What ye want?" The boy made no answer, staring with round moon-eyes. "He's noiked," came a musing voice. "Oi dew loike to see un." He shot out a finger, and, flinging back his head, gurgled laughter. "Here, boy!" called Kit. "As you are there, you can carry me over these pebbles." He leapt on the other's back, and Blob, sturdy as he looked limp, crashed down the shingle and across the stretch of wet sand at a loose-jointed canter.