"Mary has but little taste for a redcoat," was the dry retort.

"And judging from your own tone, you share her taste," he said, now quite good-naturedly, for he found himself taking a strong liking to this bright, free-speaking lad.

"I? Oh, I don't know," was the careless answer. "Do you not think I am somewhat too young to have much of an opinion upon such matters?"

He smiled, but without replying. Then Dot came closer to him and said in a low voice, "At any rate, I am good-natured enough to say I can show you something that you, being His Majesty's officer, had best know about."

"What is it?" the young man asked. He was now looking around for his hat, which, together with the bandage about his head, had fallen off during his struggle with the pedler.

Dorothy's sharp eyes were the first to catch sight of these; and she picked them up and handed them to him, noting with an odd feeling that he placed the bandage inside his coat and over his heart.

"It is something you may or may not care to see," she replied. "Only I'll warrant you'll be sorry if another reports it first; for I shall show it to the next Britisher who comes this way."

"Very well," he said; "let me see it."

Without further parley, and suspecting a nest of concealed firearms, or something of the like, he followed her down the rocks, going with slow caution, while she went more rapidly and soon stood below, waiting for him. And then, side by side, they set off inland.

Dorothy, skirting as closely as was prudent the woods where she reckoned Mary was still hiding, took care to remark to her companion, in a voice loud enough to reach her friend's ears, that it would not take over ten minutes to reach their destination, and that then he had best go his own way.

CHAPTER XIV

Mary Broughton was where Dorothy suspected her to be; and standing well back among the deeper shadows, she had been straining her eyes to see all that took place on the rocky platform above the cave.

She marvelled greatly at the lengthy converse Dorothy seemed to be holding with the stranger, after Johnnie Strings disappeared over the side of the rocks in the direction of Riverhead Beach; and she had started out of the wood, half determined to go and meet the younger girl, when she saw her leaving the peak.

A prudent afterthought led her to draw back again when she saw the two forms swallowed up in the deeper darkness lying at the base of the rocks. Then, hearing steps coming toward her hiding-place, she was on the point of calling out, when Dorothy's words came to her ears, and she remained silent, but still wondering what scheme her friend was pursuing, and who was the stranger with whom she seemed to be upon such excellent terms.

Then came the impulse that she had better find her way to the Black Hole, and tell the waiting party of what had happened; and acting upon this, she set out at once.

She had not gone very far when there came to her the sound of tramping feet; and hastening to get out of the more open part of the wood, she drew aside amongst the denser growth.

She now heard a low-pitched voice singing a s.n.a.t.c.h of an old song, trolling it off in a rollicking fashion that bespoke the youth of the singer,--

"We hunters who follow the chase, the chase, Ride ever with care a race, a race.

We care not, we reck not--"

Here the song was silenced by another voice which Mary recognized as that of Doak, an old fisherman, who growled: "Belay that 'ere pipin', Bait. Hev ye no sense, thet ye risk callin' down the reg'lars on us with such a roarin'?"

They were now quite near; and slipping out of the bushes, Mary called out, "Doak, is that you?"

"Who be it?" he demanded quickly, while all the other men came to a halt.

"It is I--Mary Broughton. Don't stop to question me, but listen to what I have to tell you."

She told them in the briefest possible way of what had happened. And in doing this, she deemed it wiser to tell them of Dorothy's disguise, being fearful of what might befall the girl should the men chance to meet her,--more especially as they would now be on the lookout for the stranger, who was doubtless an ill wisher to their scheme.

Doak chuckled mightily over it all, particularly at Mary's description of Dorothy kicking the lanterns off the rock; and several of the other men gave hoa.r.s.e utterance to their admiration.

"Ev'ry natur' be fitted for its own app'inted work," remarked old Doak, dogmatically. "If Mistress Dorothy had not allers been darin', by the natur' o' things, she'd never a ketched holt o' the right rope so true an' quick as she hev this night,--G.o.d bless her!"

Here a younger voice broke in impatiently with, "But, Doak, we ought n't to stand here chatterin' like this."

"True, true, Tommy Harris," the old man replied good-naturedly. "But,"

turning to Mary, "what shall ye do, Mistress Mary? Hed n't ye best let one o' the boys tek ye to the house? Ye see we be goin' down to the sh.o.r.e to Master John an' the rest of 'em, as was 'greed we should as soon as we saw the 'Pearl' show her light."

Mary said she preferred to go with them. But the old man shook his head, and his companions began to move onward.

"D'ye think 'twould be wise, mistress?" he asked gravely. "Ye see we don't know jest what sort o' work we may find cut out for us,--'specially if the man ye saw throttlin' Johnnie Strings were a British spy, as belike he were, pretty sure." Then he added impatiently, "I wonder where in tarnation Johnnie hev gone to, thet he did n't cut back to tell us?"

"And I am wondering where Dorothy has gone," said Mary, with much anxiety.

"I rather guess ye need hev no fear for her, mistress," Doak made haste to reply. "She be wide awake, I'll bet my head, where'er she be."

"But it seems so strange a thing that she should go off in such fashion," Mary said, by no means satisfied with the old man's confident words.

"She went 'cause she wanted to go; an' she wanted to go 'cause she saw work cut out to do, I warrant ye," declared Doak, with whom the girl had always been a great favorite, since the days he used to take her and Mary Broughton on fishing excursions in his boat. "But as to ye, mistress--"

"It is this way, Doak," she said, interrupting him: "you see I cannot get into the house until I find Dorothy; for she has the key of the only door by which I could enter, except I disturbed every one."

"If ye did thet, Mistress Mary, the father would find out all 'bout the prankin', eh?" And he chuckled knowingly.

"And so 't is best," she went on, paying no attention to him, "that I go along with you until we can see Master John; and he will know what to do."

"Very well, Mistress Mary," Doak said; "come 'long o' me, an' 't will go hard with any man as seeks to molest ye,--though, from what Johnnie Strings told me o' what ye did to the spyin' Britisher this mornin'--"

Here he stopped short, both in speech and walking,--for they had been hurrying to overtake the others, now well in advance--and slapping his thigh, exclaimed: "I hev it, I hev it! What a blind old fool I be, not to hev thought o' thet afore! 'T were sure to be the same devil, or some one he sent, thet ye saw fightin' with Johnnie Strings."

"Do you think so?" asked Mary, surprised that the thought had not occurred to her before. "Whatever should make him come back there at this hour of the night?"

"Spyin', mistress, spyin', as 't is the only business he an' his soldiers be sent down to do hereabouts. Who can say how many of 'em be lyin' 'round this minute, to jump on us?"

Mary glanced about apprehensively, and moved a little closer to the st.u.r.dy fisherman's side.

They were now out of the woods, and could discern vaguely in the open field before them the dark forms grouped near the sh.o.r.e, awaiting some signal or sign that might bespeak the expected boats.

Mary and Doak joined the others, and they all stood in silence, watching the black water, now streaked with a narrow bar of sullen red from the eastern sky, where, out of a wild-looking cloud-bank, the moon was just lifting a full, clear disk.

"Can ye see aught?" muttered one stalwart fellow to his nearest neighbor,--the two standing near Mary and old Doak.

"Not I," was the low reply. "Mayhap they won't come at all now, since seein' the lanterns go out."

"Whate'er be ye thinkin' on?" chimed in Doak. "Cap'n Brattle hev brought the stuff down, fast 'nough; an' he won't be for carryin' it over to Salem, under the Gov'nor's nose. 'T is to be brought here; an'

here, an' nowhere else, hev they got to land it. They'll only be more on the lookout now--thet's all. They know us to be here, an' all they hev to do be to get to us. An' get to us they will, 'though the meadow be gra.s.s-grown with redcoats, an' the King hisself 'mongst 'em."

"D--n the King and all his redcoats!" came hoa.r.s.ely from another man; and then the talk was stopped by a faint sound from the water.