The light came again, and Thomas peered down at the dead face beneath him; then suddenly burst into a hoarse laugh.

“By all the saints! here’s another of our Spaniard’s tricks.  It is drunken Andrew the Scotchman, turned into a dead English knight.  Christopher killed him, and now he is Christopher.  But where’s Christopher?”

He thought a little while, then, jumping out of the grave, began to fill it in with all his might.

“You’re Christopher,” he said; “well, stop Christopher until I can prove you’re Andrew.  Good-bye, Sir Andrew Christopher; I am off to seek your betters.  If you are dead, who may not be alive?  Emlyn herself, perhaps, after this.  Oh, the devil is playing a merry game round old Cranwell Towers to-night, and Thomas Bolle will take a hand in it.”

He was right.  The devil was playing a merry game.  At least, so thought others beside Thomas.  For instance, that misguided but honest bigot, Martin, as he contemplated the still senseless form of Christopher, who, re-christened Brother Luiz, had been safely conveyed aboard the Great Yarmouth, and now, whether dead or living, which he was not sure, lay in the little cabin that had been allotted to the two of them.  Almost did Martin, as he looked at him and shook his bald head, seem to smell brimstone in that close place, which, as he knew well, was the fiend’s favourite scent.

The captain also, a sour-faced mariner with a squint, known in Dunwich, whence he hailed, as Miser Goody, because of his earnestness in pursuing wealth and his skill in hoarding it, seemed to feel the unhallowed influence of his Satanic Majesty.  So far everything had gone wrong upon this voyage, which already had been delayed six weeks, that is, till the very worst period of the year, while he waited for certain mysterious letters and cargo which his owners said he must carry to Seville.  Then he had sailed out of the river with a fair wind, only to be beaten back by fearful weather that nearly sank the ship.

Item:  six of his best men had deserted because they feared a trip to Spain at that season, and he had been obliged to take others at hazard.  Among them was a broad-shouldered, black-bearded fellow clad in a leather jerkin, with spurs upon his heels—­bloody spurs—­that he seemed to have found no time to take off.  This hard rider came aboard in a skiff after the anchor was up, and, having cast the skiff adrift, offered good money for a passage to Spain or any other foreign port, and paid it down upon the nail.  He, Goody, had taken the money, though with a doubtful heart, and given a receipt to the name of Charles Smith, asking no questions, since for this gold he need not account to the owners.  Afterwards also the man, having put off his spurs and soldier’s jerkin, set himself to work among the crew, some of whom seemed to know him, and in the storm that followed showed that he was stout-hearted and useful, though not a skilled sailor.