This was instantly done, and a man, a sailor by his dress, rushed in.  ’The Fair Rosamond is captured, and the preventive men are in possession of her.’

My ‘Quick! quick!’ to the men, though uttered too loud, from the suddenness of the surprise, was happily lost in the rageful outburst of Wyatt.  ‘Hellfire!’ he roared out.  ‘But you lie; it cannot be.’

‘It is true,’ rejoined the man.  ’I and Clarke went on shore about an hour ago in the punt, just to get a nip of brandy this cold night, as you won’t let us break bulk on board.  When we returned, Tom went up the side first, was nabbed, and I had hardly time, upon hearing him sing out, to shove off and escape myself.’

We were now ready, and two of the planks just over Wyatt’s head were carefully turned over.  He seemed for a moment paralysed—­for a moment only.  Suddenly he sprang towards Mary Ransome, grasped her hair with one hand, and in the other held a cocked pistol:  ‘You,’ he shouted—­’you, accursed minx, have done this.  You went out two hours ago’—­

I lifted my hand.  ‘Hurra!  Take that, you cowardly lubber!’ roared Dick Redhead; and down went the avalanche of liquid, knocking not only the pistol out of Wyatt’s hand, but himself clean off his legs, and nearly drowning Mary Ransome, her mother, and half-a-dozen others.  A rope had been made fast to one of the rafters, down which we all quietly slid before the astonished smugglers could comprehend what had happened.  Resistance was then out of the question, and they did not attempt it.  I took Wyatt and one or two others into custody, for having contraband spirits in their possession; and the others were permitted to make themselves scarce as quickly as might be—­a licence they promptly availed themselves of.

I have but a few words to add.  Henry Ransome died, I heard, not long afterwards, of pulmonary consumption, brought on by the abuse of alcoholic liquors, and his wife and daughter ultimately got into respectable service.  Mary Ransome married in due time, and with better discretion than her mother, for she does, or did, keep one of the branch post-offices in Bermondsey.  Dr Lee disappeared from the neighbourhood the instant the state of his leg enabled him to do so, and I have never seen him since.  John Wyatt, alias Black Jack, was transported for life, under the alias of John Martin, for a highway robbery near Fareham, in the year 1827.  Lately I saw him on board the convict hulk at Portsmouth.

AIR-TRAVELLING.

It may be generally known, that for some time extraordinary efforts have been making to discover a method by which locomotion through the air may be rendered as certain and practicable as locomotion by sea or land.  In this desperate enterprise, of bringing the principle of aerostation into regular use, certain individuals in Paris have taken the lead.  Our belief, like that of others, is, that plans of this kind will fail, as they have hitherto done; at the same time, we think it would be improper to dogmatise on the subject, and will only say, that if travelling by balloon becomes one of the established things of the day, so much the better.