“Muggy and close down here,” said Amyas, who, in reality, was quite faint with his own inward struggles.

“We shall be at Stow gate in five minutes,” said Cary, looking back and down longingly as his horse climbed the opposite hill; but a turn of the zigzag road hid the cottage, and the next thought was, how to effect an entrance into Stow at three in the morning without being eaten by the ban-dogs, who were already howling and growling at the sound of the horse-hoofs.

However, they got safely in, after much knocking and calling, through the postern gate in the high west wall, into a mansion, the description whereof I must defer to the next chapter, seeing that the moon has already sunk into the Atlantic, and there is darkness over land and sea.

Sir Richard, in his long gown, was soon downstairs in the hall; the letter read, and the story told; but ere it was half finished—­

“Anthony, call up a groom, and let him bring me a horse round.  Gentlemen, if you will excuse me five minutes, I shall be at your service.”

“You will not go alone, Richard?” asked Lady Grenville, putting her beautiful face in its nightcoif out of an adjoining door.

“Surely, sweet chuck, we three are enough to take two poor polecats of Jesuits.  Go in, and help me to boot and gird.”

In half an hour they were down and up across the valley again, under the few low ashes clipt flat by the sea-breeze which stood round the lonely gate of Chapel.

“Mr. Cary, there is a back path across the downs to Marsland; go and guard that.”  Cary rode off; and Sir Richard, as he knocked loudly at the gate—­

“Mr. Leigh, you see that I have consulted your honor, and that of your poor uncle, by adventuring thus alone.  What will you have me do now, which may not be unfit for me and you?”

“Oh, sir!” said Amyas, with tears in his honest eyes, “you have shown yourself once more what you always have been—­my dear and beloved master on earth, not second even to my admiral Sir Francis Drake.”

“Or the queen, I hope,” said Grenville, smiling, “but pocas palabras.  What will you do?”

“My wretched cousin, sir, may not have returned—­and if I might watch for him on the main road—­unless you want me with you.”

“Richard Grenville can walk alone, lad.  But what will you do with your cousin?”

“Send him out of the country, never to return; or if he refuses, run him through on the spot.”

“Go, lad.”  And as he spoke, a sleepy voice asked inside the gate, “Who was there?”

“Sir Richard Grenville.  Open, in the queen’s name?”

“Sir Richard?  He is in bed, and be hanged to you.  No honest folk come at this hour of night.”

“Amyas!” shouted Sir Richard.  Amyas rode back.

“Burst that gate for me, while I hold your horse.”