"Twenty-five hundred francs for the boat and outfit--the same sum for the gang, cash down. Two weeks, with the privilege of renewal for two more-at the same rate," doggedly said Blunt. "Now, you've got to make up your mind soon, Hawke," said Jack Blunt roughly. "I've told you the whole lay, and so far, have given you the worth of your money. If you can't 'come up,' then I'm going to run a lugger load of brandy and 'baccy over to the Irish coast. She's a sixty tonner and by G.o.d! fit to cross the Atlantic! Old Garcin, too, is getting impatient. Our being here, stops his 'regular business,'" gloomily said Blunt.

Hawke's impa.s.sive face angered Jack Blunt as he continued: "And you say that I can trust Garcin's brother Andre down at Isle Dial."

"Yes. Even if we had to stow one or both of these fools away down there."

"I am sure that Angelique and I could hide them away for a year or else safely forever there," cried Jack Blunt, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper. "It's only a matter of money and damme if I believe you've got any! If you fool us, you'll never get out of here alive!" Major Hawke only smiled, and dropped his hands lightly on the b.u.t.ts of two heavy bull-dog revolvers ready there in his velveteen trousers' pockets.

"Jack! Don't be an a.s.s!" he said. "I play this game to win. Do you think that I would bring my ready money into this murder pen? Now, tell me what you will take in cash, to tell me where the old miser has hidden the stuff I want? And how much will you take to do the job? I want to know when they return, and I want your help and the aid of the gang. You are to crack the crib--alone--while they are away, and then we, perhaps, may meet them, on their way home. The lugger lying off in that cove to the north of Rozel Head, below the old martello tower."

"Have you been over there?" amazedly cried Blunt.

"Oh! I know every inch of the place of old," laughed Hawke, still with his hands on his revolvers.

"Well, Major," said Jack, pouring out a cognac, "I'll take, first, five hundred pounds cash for the information. Another five hundred for the job, with a quarter of what we get. And this second sum you can put up with Etienne Garcin. You can pay him now the two hundred for the men and the boat, out of that, and give me the rest of the odd change later.

We'll never lose sight of each other after we start. For the Hirondelle will not leave me in the lurch. I've sworn never to wear the widow's jewelry again." Jack Blunt's eyes were devilish in their glare.

"So, it's five hundred pounds down now, and I can order the expedition on, after the payment. You'll give me on the instant all the news from Mattie Jones of the intended return, for I propose to have some fun with the Professor."

"Honor bright," said Jack forcibly. "For we will all hang or 'go to quod' together, if there's a break once that we begin. We had better start when I get her next letter, for Mattie is to write me to the Jersey Arms and then telegraph there, too, from Southampton. I'll have one of the crew pipe them off from the pier home to the Tolly, and a half dozen of the boys will be in hiding, ready for work. So you can work your scheme as you will."

"It's a go, then. Come on, now, and get your money," said Hawke, as he led the way to the nearest fiacre. In ten minutes, Alan Hawke disappeared into the railway waiting-room, and returned after a visit to the luggage store-room. Jack Blunt was astonished at his pal's evident distrust. "Here you are, Jack," the Major cordially cried, as they sought the rear room of the neat cafe opposite the gare. "Now, count over your five hundred pounds. I'll give Garcin the other sum in your presence. Then, I suppose that I am safe," he coldly smiled. "Tell me now where has old Fraser hidden the stuff."

"In his study on the first floor, in a secret hiding place. The girl Mattie has watched the old fellow through the keyhole. I know just where to easily break in on the ground floor. These d.a.m.ned Hindus are far away in the other wing, so there's only Simpson to hinder. Now, I'll have a couple of the boys pipe him off at the Jersey Arms. Old Janet Fairbarn's strait-laced ways make him sneak out late at night for his toddy. When he is 'well loaded' and tired with climbing up the cliff, they will follow him and fix him, for good. One of the boys will come along with me, to my hiding place, and be 'outside fence' while the two others will watch the road and the gardener's quarters. The three men are two hundred yards away, in the porter's lodge. The old Scotch woman sleeps like a post. Then I make my way when I've done, at once to the Hirondelle, alone and hide my plant. The men relieved can rally on your party at the old martello tower, and so we will be ready to sail when your part of the job is done. Two on board, three with me, nine with you, will be plenty! My work is a quiet job! I can do the whole trick in five minutes! Yours, I leave for yourself. I know just where to lay my hand."

"But, should any trouble occur?" said Alan Ha wke, "any outcry, any pursuit?"

"Then I will bury the stuff on the sh.o.r.e, saunter back openly to the Jersey Arms, and just stay there as friend Joseph Smith, till I can get over to Granville by the steamer. The Hirondelle will not be seen by any one; there are fifty luggers always hovering around. She will first land us all in Bouley Bay in the morning, or drop half the men off at St.

Catherine's Bay in the early afternoon. They all know every inch of the ground." In half an hour the chums in villainy dined gayly with "Angelique," and a running mate, rejoicing in the cognomen of "Pet.i.te Diable Jaune." The next day, a secret meeting with a confidential Jewish money-lender, enabled Major Alan Hawke to safely market the half of the jewels which he had extorted from Ram Lal Singh. In a waist belt, he wore a thousand pounds of Banque of France notes neatly concealed. Jack Blunt and Garcia had earned an extra bonus of a hundred pounds each in the jewel sale, and Alan Hawke laughed, as he laid away four thousand pounds in his safely deposited luggage, in the railway office. "I can trust to the French Republic--one and indivisible," he said, as he sent a loving letter to Justine Delande, and then mailed her the receipt for his valuable package, with his last wishes, "in case of accident."

"These fellows might kill me for this, if they knew of it!" he growled.

Three days later, the stanch Hirondelle was beating up and down Granville Bay, while Alan Hawke awaited the letter of the faithful Mattie Jones. He had furnished the twenty-pound note which made that natty damsel doubly anxious to meet her faithful lover "Joseph Smith,"

to whom she now dispatched the news of the immediate return of the anxious Professor. Fraser was burning to take up the gathering of Thibetan pearls of hidden knowledge, while the artful and restless Professor Alaric Hobbs was stealthily waiting Prince Djiddin's departure, but kept busied with some personal tidal and magnetic observations on Rozel Head. In the deserted second floor of an old martello tower, he had made a lair for his evening star and planetory researches, and the ingenious Yankee concealed a rope ladder in the clinging ivy which enabled him to cut off all intrusion on his eyrie.

CHAPTER XV. THE FRENCH FISHER BOAT, "HIRONDELLE."

It was four o'clock of a wild November afternoon when Major Alan Hawke, cowering in a hooded Irish frieze ulster, crawled deeper into a cave-like recess in the little path leading from the Jersey Arms up to Rozel Head. The blinding rain was thrown in wild gusts by the howling winds, now lashing the green channel to a roughened foam. A sudden and terrific storm was coming on.

Half an hour before the disguised adventurer could see the ominous double storm signals flying in warning on the scattered coast guard stations, a signal of danger sent on from the Corbieres Lighthouse. But now not a single sail was to be seen, and huge banks of heavy blackening mists were rolling over the stormy channel. Not a stray sail was in sight!

"Where in h.e.l.l is Jack?" raged the excited conspirator, swallowing half the contents of his brandy flask. As he returned it, the b.u.t.ts of his two revolvers and the handle of a huge couteau de cha.s.se were plainly visible. "The fiends seem to be let loose to-day," he growled. "It would be the night of all nights! Ha!" The discharged officer noted two men in sou'westers and oilskins now toiling up the path. And his heart leaped up in a wild joy.

In another moment, he half dragged his drenched companions into the weather-worn cave. "What news?" he hoa.r.s.ely demanded of Blunt, as he extended his flask.

"The best of all news," cheerily replied the mobs-man. "Here is Antoine.

He raced down from St. Heliers, in a covered fly, and has brought the very latest news from Fort Regent. The Stella has lost the tide, cannot enter, and has, therefore, turned south, running down the channel.

She can not dare to enter St. Heliers now till between ten and eleven to-night. Of course, she will not put back to Southampton, in the teeth of this southwest gale, the very heaviest known for twenty years. She has signaled the 'Corbieres,' and they have telegraphed over to the office at the pier. There's Mattie Jones's telegram. The three we want are on board, sure enough. And, thank G.o.d! the Hirondelle is riding safe and easy around the point. It's the one night of a million for my job and for yours."

"What's your final plan? We must get out of here soon," growled Hawke, shaking off the pouring rain like a burly water dog. "I have my two men already watching the little gardener's hut in the Tropical Gardens, where I hid my cracksman's outfit. Old Simpson is boozing away down at the Jersey Arms. I heard him tell pretty Ann, the barmaid, that he would have to be home by midnight, for the 'old man' would surely arrive in the morning. Now, will you stay here with this man, and 'do up' old Simpson? Mind you, there must be no stab or bullet wound. The 'life preserver,' and, then over with him! They will only think that rum and the fall did the business.

"I will make straight for the Hirondelle when I am done, and send a man to report to you at the old martello tower, where your gang are to meet you. This man can get over to the boat now and warn them to show up, carefully, one by one, and hide around there till dark. Not in the tower itself, for some of the coast-guard roundsmen might take shelter there and pitch into them for smugglers. I'll stay here till he comes back. If old Simpson should come along too early, why, you and I could hide him away here till it is dark enough to throw him over. And you'll surely catch old Fraser and the two women on the road between eleven and two.

It will take over an hour to drive from the pier in this weather.

"All right!" sternly said Hawke. "Send your man right away. I will tell them what to do later, when I meet them. Let him send the boatswain and two men to meet us here, and wait and hide with the others around the tower. I will hunt in the bushes till I run on them. Stay! He can come back here to me with the three!"

It was already dark when the four men returned to where Alan Hawke lay perdu with his murderous mate. Not a light was now to be seen but the one glimmer below in the "Public," on the Rozel pier. And the very last words had been spoken between "Gentleman Jack Blunt" and his crafty employer. "Now, remember," said Jack, "Antoine here goes down with orders to come up the cliff ahead of old Simpson. You'll surely be warned of his approach. You can give the boatswain his orders; there'll be three to one. Your man leads you to your men at the tower. And I am to crack that crib and make for the Hirondelle!

"If chased, the boat runs out to sea, and you are both only honest, French fishermen storm-driven ash.o.r.e in search of supplies!"

"That's it, Jack! You are to wait for me, if the house is not alarmed.

I'll bring some 'pa.s.sengers,' perhaps, on board. If I fail, you are just to run for Granville. We will all meet at Etienne's. I've got money to take care of all my men. You are to make no miss. I can wait and try again if I am disappointed. I'll take no chances. With your success, I can hold the old miser down, and your two thousand pounds is safe; besides, the swag is your security. You see, he will never dare to make any public outcry, for he secretly fears the Government! We take only the safest chances. He may stay down there all night at St. Heliers, and your lucky chance will never come again. Go ahead, and do not fail!"

The two men grasped hands in an excited clinch. "Do up Simpson for a dead man, and no mistake!" hoa.r.s.ely whispered Jack Blunt.

"I'll fix the old blanc-bec," growled the boatswain, as the spy slid down the hill toward Rozel Pier.

"Take my flask, Jack!" said Alan Hawke.

"I don't drink on duty!" simply replied Blunt. "I shall get at work by eleven, and you'll hear from me by midnight! Then, look out only for yourself! The boat is mine, if there's any alarm. I'll send her back soon to Rozel Pier, if I have to run out to sea, and you are to be only honest fishermen. How long shall I wait in the cove for you?"

"Sail at three o'clock, if I'm not on board! Remember the hail, 'Saint Malo, Ahoy!'"

"This is dead square, for life and death!" cried Blunt.

"Dead square," echoed the renegade officer. Darkness now doubled its black folds, and the roar of the surf boomed sullenly upon the rocky Rozel beach. Crouching in their cave, the two French thugs eagerly watched the winding path below, and gathered a resentful vulpine ferocity in their hearts. With knife in one hand, and the heavy lead-weighted blackjacks in readiness, they cowered upon the path, waiting for the old soldier, whose thickened eyes were still sullenly gazing at the dingy clock in the Jersey Arms. He hated to leave the pretty, white-armed Ann.

Ten o'clock! The red-coated soldiery of Fort Regent and Elizabeth Castle, the guardians of Mont Orgueil, were all wrapped in slumber, save the poor, shivering sentinels. Ten o'clock! The drenched tide waiters at St. Heliers pier anathematized the still distant Stella, whose lights now blinked feebly, laboring far out at sea. "An hour yet to wait!"

growled the bedraggled customs officers. Ten o'clock! The good burghers of St. Heliers had given up their whist, and taken their last drop of "hot and hot." In St. Aubin's Bay, from Corbin's Light, from mansion in town, and cot among the Druidical rocks, anxious eyes now gazed out on the wild sea, where Andrew Fraser tried to calm the terrified Nadine Johnstone.

Mattie Jones was lying senseless, a helpless ma.s.s of cowering humanity, while the anxious captain and pilot vigorously swore, as became hardy British seamen. The "Chief" had piped up "that the engines would be out of her," if they shipped another sea like the last. Prayer in the cabin, curses on the deck, fear in the hold, and misery everywhere; the stout Stella struggled sh.o.r.eward, toward her dangerous landing at the pier, whose sheer sixty feet of masonry wall was now lashed by the wild waves.

Black waters rose and fell in great surges. The shivering coastguards in the line of garrisoned martello towers, vowed that no such night had ever been seen since the "Great Storm."

Prince Djiddin had also given up all hope of the return of the faithful Moonshee whose plea of "business," had led him away to the society of his brave and beautiful bride. There was but one more day of "home life"

before resuming the hoodwinking of the mentally excited historian of Thibet. "It's a fearful night on the Channel," thought Major Hardwicke as he waited in vain for Simpson's return to act as valet de chambre.

"G.o.d help all at sea! It's a fearful night," Prince Djiddin murmured as he closed his eyes, little reckoning that the beautiful girl whom he loved more than life was tempest-tossed off the Corbieres, while poor Mattie Jones literally "sickened on the heaving wave."

The great house was lone and still, and for the first time Prince Djiddin reflected upon the exposed situation of the old miser's home.

"Poor old chap," he muttered, as he closed his eyes. "Somebody might come in and throttle him some night! No one would be here to stop it.

I must speak to Simpson, yes, speak to Simpson--that is, if he is ever sober enough to listen. Poor old soldier! He will have his drink!"

There was a singular improvised bivouac going on in the ruined martello tower where Professor Alaric Hobbs had set up his instruments to take some interesting observations upon an occultation of Venus.

A coast-guard station at Bouley Bay and St. Catherine's Head rendered the further occupancy of the old martello tower at Rozel Head unnecessary, and only a few rats and bats now resented Alaric Hobbs'

sequestration of the second story. He meditated a comparative memoir upon the "Tides of Fundy Bay, and the Channel Islands," with a treatise upon "Contracted Ocean Surface Currents." Astronomer, hydrographer, geologist, and all-round savant, his lank form was already familiar to the Channel Islanders. And, like the wind, he veered around "where he listed."