“God knows ’tis vile enough,” said I, scarce able to refrain from blowing his brains out. “So you were to follow the Earl’s army, and work the signals. Which are they?” For a quick resolve had come into my head, and I was casting about to put it into execution. “A green light if we won: if not, a red light, to warn the sloop away.” I picked up the packet that had dropp’d from his hand when first I sprang upon him. It was burst abroad, and a brown powder trickling from it about the ledge. “This was the red light—to be sprinkled on the burning charcoal, I suppose?” The fellow nodded. At the same moment, Billy (who as yet had not spoke a word, and of course, understood nothing) thrust into my hand another packet that he had found stuck in a corner against the rock. “Now tell me—in case the rebels won, where was the landing to be made?” “In the cove below here—where the road leads down.” “Aye, the road where the wagon stood.” Captain Luke Settle blink’d his eyes at this: but nodded after a moment. “And how many would escort her?” He caught my drift and laughed softly— “Be damn’d, sir, but I begin to love you, for you play the game very proper and soundly. Reuben, Jeremy, and Black Dick alone are in the plot; so why should more escort her? For the skipper and crew have their own business to look after.” “Then, Master Settle, tho’ it be a sore trial to you, those three Knaves you must give me, or I play my Ace,” and I pressed the ring of my pistol sharply against his ear as a reminder. “With all my heart, young sir, you shall have them,” says he briskly. “And this is ‘honor among thieves,’” thought I: “You would sell your comrade as you sold your King:” but only said, “If you cry out, or speak one word to warn them—” Before I could get my sentence out, Billy Pottery broke in with a voice like a trumpet— “As folks go, Jack, I be a humorous man. But sittin’ here, an’ ponderin’ this way an’ that, I says, in my deaf an’ afflicted style, ‘Why not shoot the ugly rogue, if mirth, indeed, be your object?’ For to wait till an uglier comes to this untravel’d spot is superfluity.” How to explain matters to Billy was more than I could tell: but in a moment he himself supplied the means. For the rocks here were of some kind of slate, very hard, but scaly: and finding two pieces, a large and a small, he handed them to me, bawling that I was to write therewith. So giving him my pistol, I made shift to scribble a few words. Seeing his eyes twinkle as he read, I stood up. The charcoal by this time was a glowing mass of red: and threw so clear a light on us that I feared the crew on board the sloop might see our forms and suspect their misadventure. But the lantern still hung steadily: so signing to Billy to drag our prisoner behind a tamarisk bush, I open’d the second packet, and poured some of the powder into my hand.