“Don’t talk nonsense, Ruby.”

“No more I will, darling, if you will listen to me while I talk sense.”

“What is it?” said the girl, looking earnestly and somewhat anxiously into her lover’s face, for she knew at once by his expression that he had some unpleasant communication to make.  “You’re not going away?”

“Well, no—­not exactly; you know I promised to stay with mother; but the fact is that I’m so pestered and hunted down by that rascally press-gang, that I don’t know what to do.  They’re sure to nab me at last, too, and then I shall have to go away whether I will or no, so I’ve made up my mind as a last resource, to——­” Ruby paused.

“Well?” said Minnie.

“Well, in fact to do what will take me away for a short time, but——­” Ruby stopped short, and, turning his head on one side, while a look of fierce anger overspread his face, seemed to listen intently.

Minnie did not observe this action for a few seconds, but, wondering why he paused, she looked up, and in surprise exclaimed—­

“Ruby! what do you——­”

“Hush!  Minnie, and don’t look round,” said he in a low tone of intense anxiety, yet remaining immovably in the position which he had assumed on first sitting down by the girl’s side, although the swelled veins of his neck and his flushed forehead told of a fierce conflict of feeling within.

“It’s the press-gang after me again.  I got a glance of one o’ them out of the tail of my eye, creeping round the rocks.  They think I haven’t seen them.  Darling Minnie—­one kiss.  Take care of mother if I don’t turn up soon.”

“But how will you escape——­”

“Hush, dearest girl!  I want to have as much of you as I can before I go.  Don’t be afraid.  They’re honest British tars after all, and won’t hurt you, Minnie.”

Still seated at the girl’s side, as if perfectly at his ease, yet speaking in quick earnest tones, and drawing her closely to him, Ruby waited until he heard a stealthy tread behind him.  Then he sprang up with the speed of thought, uttered a laugh of defiance as the sailors rushed towards him, and leaping wildly off the cliff, fell a height of about fifty feet into the sea.

Minnie uttered a scream of horror, and fell fainting into the arms of the bewildered lieutenant.

“Down the cliffs—­quick! he can’t escape if you look alive.  Stay, one of you, and look after this girl.  She’ll roll over the edge on recovering, perhaps.”

It was easy to order the men down the cliffs, but not so easy for them to obey, for the rocks were almost perpendicular at the place, and descended sheer into the water.

“Surround the spot,” shouted the lieutenant.  “Scatter yourselves—­away! there’s no beach here.”

The lieutenant was right.  The men extended themselves along the top of the cliffs so as to prevent Ruby’s escape, in the event of his trying to ascend them, and two sailors stationed themselves in ambush in the narrow pass at the spot where the cliffs terminate in the direction of the town.