The Gentleman sprang up in the boat. _"Ramez toujours, mes enfants!_" he cried. "_C'est une ruse!_" The men hung on their oars. "_Laches!_" cried the Gentleman, smote the man on the foremost thwart a buffet, and leaping overboard floundered through the water. The man in the bows fired. There was no reply from the shingle-bank. The men of the galley took courage. The boat swished through the shallows, and bumped ashore. Out tumbled her crew, and stormed across the sand at the heels of the Gentleman. The Parson was staggering up the shingle-bank, the boy in his arms. At the top he paused, heaving like an earthquake, and looked back on his scampering pursuers. "Yes, my beauties," he panted. "You just won't do it." Knapp, keen as a terrier, bobbed up at his side. "Shall I charge em, sir?" his little brown eyes bursting with desire-- "me and the boy. Down the ill and into em plippety-plumpety-plop! O for God's sake, sir!" whimpering, dancing. "Ave mercy as you ope for it. Let me ave me smack if it's only for the glory of the old rigiment." "Certainly not," said the Parson sternly. "This is war, not tomfoolery." The little man collapsed sullenly. "_From the right--retire by companies--on your sup-ports!_" shouted the Parson in measured regimental voice. From his manner he might have been addressing a Brigade and not merely Blob, disguised in an ancient shako, lying on his stomach, and armed with a hay-rake. III He plunged down the bank. As he reached the greensward a warning shout from the cottage reached him. "Ha! what's this?" joggled the Parson sharply. "Flank attack! who the pest? Oh, Gap Gang--I forgot." A stream of fierce dark figures with running legs poured down the Wish and across the greensward at him. "Hold tight round my neck, Kit!" he panted, taut to meet the new attack. "I want my sword-arm free. What! the boy's fainted!" He gave the limp body a hoist on his shoulder. "Now, Knapp! Let's see these guts o yours!" Knapp shot by him, his arms working like piston-rods. "Come on, Blob, me boy. Slaughder for somebody!" He pranced into action, throwing his legs like a hackney trotter. "Pray, duckie darlins, pray!" he called. "I'm a-comin! I'm a-comin! I'm a-comin!" The life was bursting out of him. It made him laughing-mad. He was lusty as a young lion. "Here they come!" muttered the Parson, labouring behind. And come they did at a hound-slink, bunched together, and babbling. It was clear they were uncertain of each other and of success. Sin, the mighty Disintegrator, was at work upon their spirits. A more half- hearted crew of blackguards never attempted murder. They needed Black Diamond. He, and he alone, might have held them and swung them, as a fine horseman holds and swings a refuser at a fence. And what dark faces! what dreadful eyes! what voices popping up like foul bubbles from a sewage pond! _"Them three all?" "Enough too, ain't it?" "I'm for gain back. Look at the face on that buster with the sword!"