“Take it easy,” said he to Longsword. “There is no one after us.”
“There will be in a few minutes,” panted the Irishman, distrustfully. “They’ll lose no time, sure, when they find which way we’ve gone.”
However, they slackened their pace, but still headed toward the sea.
“We must get a boat,” said Ethan. “It’s our only hope. To be seen ashore means arrest; and this part of the coast is too thickly populated for hiding.”
“You are right,” answered Longsword. “We’ll have to get afloat; it’s very little chance we’ll have to do anything but starve; but if we can get across the channel into Ireland, I’ll go bail that we’ll be safe enough. There is many a colleen or gossoon that would hide us away, if it was only because we are enemies of the Saxon.”
A few moments later Ethan remarked, “We are near the wharf where we landed; see that tall signal mast; I remember passing it.”
“Sure enough,” said Longsword; “and here is the wharf.”
It was a stout wooden pier built out into the cove for some distance; almost directly opposite it, about a musket shot away, were the lights of the schooner that had brought them to the town. They stood at the head of the pier for some moments; then Ethan said, suddenly,
“Danvers and his men must have landed at this pier; and if so we’ll be sure to find their boat at the end of it.”
“Bravo!” breathed Longsword. “Sure, ye have a clear head on your shoulders, Master Ethan, so ye have.”
They walked slowly down the pier; as they neared the end Longsword caught Ethan by the arm.
Ethan strained his eyes through the darkness, and at last he made out the shadowy forms of several men standing at the end of the pier.
“A guard over the boat,” he whispered to the Irish dragoon.
“That Danvers is a suspicious bla’guard,” grumbled Longsword. “Sure here we have sorra the weapon--not even a lump of a stick--and we have the luck to come across a couple of able bodied lads wid cutlasses and pistols, I have no doubt.”
“Those we knocked down a few moments ago had the same,” said Ethan evenly. “And we had no trouble in disposing of them.”
“Right! Ah, but it’s yourself that’s your father’s son, me lad.”
They crept softly down the pier; at one side was a huge fisherman’s net hung upon a frame to dry; they placed this between themselves and the seamen from the schooner so that they might not detect any movement in the shadow. As they drew nearer they could hear the sailors’ voices.