James Walsham had been turning over the matter in his mind.  He had certainly taken no part in the fray, but that would be difficult to prove, and he could not account for his presence except by acknowledging that he was there to warn them.  It would certainly be a case of imprisonment.  Surely, it would be better to volunteer than this.  He had been longing for the sea, and here an opportunity opened for him for abandoning the career his mother intended for him, without setting himself in opposition to her wishes.  Surely she would prefer that he should be at sea for a year or two to his being disgraced by imprisonment.  He therefore now stepped forward.

“I do not belong to the lugger’s crew, sir, and had nothing to do with running their cargo, though I own I was on the spot at the time.  I am not a sailor, though I have spent a good deal of time on board fishing boats.  Mr. Horton, whom I see there, knows me, and will tell you that I am a son of a doctor in Sidmouth.  But, as I have got into a scrape, I would rather serve than go back and stand a trial.”

“Very well, my lad,” the captain said.  “I like your spirit, and will keep my eye on you.”

The three countrymen and four of the French sailors, who declined to join the Thetis, were taken back to the cutter, and the Thetis at once proceeded on her way down channel.  James had given a hastily scribbled line, on the back of an old letter which he happened to have in his pocket, to the men who were to be taken ashore, but he had very little hope that it would ever reach his mother.  Nor, indeed, did it ever do so.  When the cutter reached Weymouth with the lugger, the men captured in her were at once sent to prison, where they remained until they were tried at assizes three months afterwards; and, although all were acquitted of the charge of unlawful resistance to the king’s officers, as there was no proof against any of the six men individually, they were sentenced to a year’s imprisonment for smuggling.

Whether Jim’s hurriedly written letter was thrown overboard, or whether it was carried in the pocket of the man to whom he gave it until worn into fragments, James never knew, but it never reached his mother.

The news that James was missing was brought to her upon the day after the event by Mr. Wilks.  He had, as usual, gone down after breakfast to report how Aggie was getting on, with a message from his mother that her charge was now so completely restored that it was unnecessary for her to stay longer at the Hall, and that she should come home that evening at her usual time.  Hearing from the girl that James had not returned since he went out at nine o’clock on the previous evening, the old soldier sauntered down to the beach, to inquire of the fishermen in whose boat James had gone out.

To his surprise, he found that none of the boats had put to sea the evening before.  The men seemed less chatty and communicative than usual.  Most of them were preparing to go out with their boats, and none seemed inclined to enter into a conversation.  Rather wondering at their unusual reticence, Mr. Wilks strolled along to where the officer of the revenue men was standing, with his boatswain, watching the fishermen.