"Brisk along with that lantern, Nat Roper," said Glen, and the young fellow who had flung himself down on the grass struck a light and set fire to the candle. The shed was divided by a wooden partition, in which was a rickety door hardly hanging on its hinges. "In there!" said Glen, swinging the lantern towards the inner room. My bearers picked me up again and carried me to the door. One of them kicked at the door, but it did not yield. "It's jammed," said the other, "there's some-thing 'twixt it and the floor," and raising a great sea boot, he kicked with all his might. I heard a metallic clinking, as though a piece of iron was hopping across the stone floor, and the door flew open. They carried me into the inner room and set me down against the partition. There was no furniture of any sort, not even a bucket to sit upon; there was no window either, a thatched roof rested upon heavy beams over my head. They placed the lantern at my feet, four of them squatted down about me, the fifth went out of the shed to keep watch. It was, after all, not in the inn kitchen of the Palace Inn that any bargain was to be struck. I could not deny that they had chosen their place very well. Not a man in Tresco but would give this shed the widest of berths, and if he saw the glint of this lantern through a chink, or heard, perhaps, as he was like to do, one loud cry--why, he would only take to his heels the faster. The ropes, too, made my bones ache. I would have preferred the kitchen at the Palace Inn. CHAPTER XII I FIND AN UNEXPECTED FRIEND Glen bade Roper take the handkerchief from my mouth, and when that was done his creased face smiled at me over the lantern. "About the _Royal Fortune?_" he said smoothly. Peter Tortue nodded, and absently cleaned the blade of his knife upon the thighs of his breeches. There was no reply for me to make, and I waited. "You were over to St. Mary's to-day?" "Yes." "What did you do there?" "I bought a pair of silk stockings and some linen." George Glen sniggered like a man that leaves off a serious conversation to laugh politely at a bad joke. "But it's true," I cried. "Did you speak of the _Royal Fortune?_" "No," and, as luck would have it, I had not--not even to the Rev. Mr. Milray. "Not to a living soul?" "No." "Did you go up to Star Castle?" "No." "Did you speak to Captain Hathaway?" "No." "'There's poor old George,' you said. 'Old George Glen,' says you, 'what was quartermaster with Cap'n Roberts on the _Royal_----'" "No," I cried. "Did you mention Peter Tortue?" said the Frenchman. "No. Would you be sitting here if I had? There would be a company of soldiers scouring the island for you."