No one laid hands on him. Walking beside the Squire's horse down to the road, followed by the gaping, gabbling crowd, who still, however, kept aloof, the Narragansett walked proudly erect. When he reached the highway, he turned. There was a cart standing there. The Squire dismounted from his horse and spoke a few words to the driver. Then he mounted to the seat. John Vance sprang up beside him. At a brisk pace they started down the road towards Portsmouth, the soldiers and the horsemen trailing on behind them. At the landing where the boat from the old _Spartan_ met them--for a horseman had ridden on with the news--was waiting a sergeant of marines. He advanced with a pair of handcuffs. "None of that!" exclaimed the Squire. "This man has given me his word." "The word of a chief's son," put in the Narragansett. The two men shook hands again; then proudly John Vance stepped into the boat, and unmanacled sat there in the stern sheets. In twenty minutes he was once more down in the close, foul-smelling 'tween decks. The only notice taken of the Narragansett's break for liberty was the fact that he was numbered among the next detail bound for Dartmoor; but the tradition of the man-hunt of Squire Knowlton's hounds, and its curious ending, lives in Devonshire to-day. FIGHTING STEWART An old sailor sat on the _Constitution's_ forecastle, with his back against the carriage of one of the forward carronades. He was skilfully unwinding a skein of spun yarn which he held over his two bare feet, while at the same time he rolled the ball deftly with his stubby, jointless fingers. A young boy, not over fourteen years of age, lay sprawled flat on the deck beside him, his chin supported in the hollows of his two hands, his elbows on the deck. "It comes all along o' drinkin' rum, says I," went on the old sailor, continuing some tale he had been telling. "That, I claims, is the reason for many unfortunate doin's; and that is why all them men I was tellin' you about was eat by the cannibals." "I don't see as it made any difference," broke in the boy, "except perhaps in the taste. If they were bent on going where they did, they'd have been eaten anyhow, wouldn't they?" "As to that," returned the old sailor, "I contradict ye. Rum sometimes makes a fellow want to fight when it's a tarnel sight braver to run; that is, upon some occashuns." "Some folks get so they can't even wiggle, let alone run," observed the boy. "I saw our bo'sun----"