"Poo! nonsense, nonsense!" cried Plessis: "all stuff and exaggeration. No Messenger, I dare say, at all. So be off, all of you, as fast as you can go; and get out of the way, for fear of any inquiries being made." "Why here's the young gentleman himself!" cried the master: "he don't look like a Messenger, sure enough. But there was another man that ran away, he may have been the Messenger." The man looked to Wilton as he spoke, who instantly replied, "You are right, sir. He was a Messenger; but neither he nor I came hither about anything referring to you. Indeed, neither of us even knew of your existence before we saw you." At that moment, the stranger who was standing beside Plessis, and who was very different from the sailors in appearance, stepped forward to Wilton, and said in a low tone, "May I, sir, ask your name?" The countersign that Green had given him immediately returned to Wilton's memory, and he replied, "My name is Brown, sir, but it might as well have been Green." "Oh no, sir," replied the stranger, in the same tone, "every man should keep his right name, and be in his right place, which is the case with yourself in both respects at present;" and turning to Plessis, he said, "This is a friend of the Colonel's, Plessis. He sent me down to meet him and bring him here, because he could not come himself." "Oh, oh!" said Plessis, looking wise, "that's all right, then. I saw that he spoke to the Lady Helen. Take him into the saloon, Captain, and I'll come to you in a minute, as soon as I've got the house clear, and everything quiet again. I expect some gentlemen to meet here to-night, to take their bowl of punch, you know." "This way, sir," said the person whom the Frenchman had called Captain, turning to Wilton, and leading him on into the large room, which was now quite vacant. The moment that he was there, and the door closed, the stranger came close up to him, saying, "Where is the Messenger? Had you not a Messenger with you? I waited on the road for you three-quarters of an hour." "I rather think," replied Wilton, "that I was misdirected by the landlord of the inn, and a series of unhappy mistakes has been the consequence." "Which are not over yet," exclaimed the other; "for here are we, only two men, with very likely a dozen or two against us, with no power or authority to take the lady from out of their hands, and with nothing but our swords and pistols." "Oh no!" answered Wilton--"you mistake. I have sufficient authority both from her father and from the Secretary of State."