In the Kings Name | Page 5

don't understand. Nichts verstand," shouted the man through his hollow hands, as if he were hailing some one a mile away.
"You scoundrel, why didn't you say you could speak English?"
"You never arkst me," growled the man.
"Silence, sir. How dare you address an officer of a king's ship like that!"
"Then what do you go shooting at me for? King George don't tell you to go firin' guns at peaceable fisher folk, as me."
"Silence, sir, or I'll put you in irons, and take you on board the cutter. Why didn't you obey my signals to heave-to?"
"Signals! I never see no signals."
"How dare you, sir! you know I fired."
"Oh, them! We thought you was practisin', and hauled down till you'd done, for the balls was flying very near."
"Where are you from?"
"From? Nowheres. We been out all night fishing."
"What's your port?"
"Shoreham."
"And what have you on board? Who are those people?"
Those two people had been seen on the instant by Hilary Leigh, as they sat below the half-deck of the lugger, shrinking from observation in the semi-darkness. He had noticed that, though wearing rough canvas covering similar to those affected by a crew in stormy weather, they were of a different class; and as the lieutenant was in converse with the skipper of the lugger, he climbed over the lowered sail between, and saw that one of the two whom the other tried to screen was quite a young girl.
It was but a momentary glance, for she hastily drew a hood over her face, as she saw that she was noticed.
"Jacobites for a crown!" said Hilary to himself, as he saw a pair of fierce dark eyes fixed upon him.
"Who are you?" he exclaimed.
"Hush, for heaven's sake!" was the answer whispered back; "don't you know me, Leigh? A word from you and they will shoot me like a dog."
At the same moment there was a faint cry, and Hilary saw that the young girl had sunk back, fainting.
CHAPTER TWO.
A STRICT SEARCH.
"Sir Henry!" ejaculated Hilary Leigh; and for the moment his heart seemed to stand still, for his duties as a king's officer had brought him face to face with a dear old friend, at whose house he had passed some of his happiest days, and he knew that the disguised figure the Jacobite gentleman sought to hide was his only daughter, Adela, Hilary's old playmate and friend, but so grown and changed that he hardly recognised her in the momentary glance he had of her fair young face.
"Hush! silence! Are you mad?" was the reply, in tones that set the young man's heart beating furiously, for he knew that Sir Henry Norland was proscribed for the part he had take in the attempt of the Young Pretender, and Leigh had thought that he was in France.
"Who are they, Mr Leigh?" said the lieutenants striding over the lumber in the bottom of the boat.
"Seems to be an English gentleman, sir," said Leigh, in answer to an agonised appeal from Sir Henry's eyes.
"I am an English gentleman, sir, and this is my daughter. She is very ill."
"Of course she is," cried the lieutenant testily. "Women are sure to be sick if you bring them to sea. But look here, my good fellow, English gentleman or no English gentleman, you can't deceive me. Now then, what have you got on board?"
"Fish, I believe," said Sir Henry.
"Yes, of course," sneered the lieutenant; "and brandy, and silk, and velvet, and lace. Now then, skipper, you are caught this time. But look here, you scoundrel, what do you mean by pretending to be a Frenchman?"
"Frenchman? Frenchman?" said the skipper with a look of extreme stupidity. "You said I was a Dutchman."
"You lie, you scoundrel. Here, come forward and move that sail and those nets. Now no nonsense; set your fellows to work."
He clapped his hand sharply on the skipper's shoulder, and turned him round, following him forward.
"Take a man, Mr Leigh, and search that dog-hole."
Hilary Leigh was astounded, for knowing what he did he expected that the lieutenant would have instantly divined what seemed patent to him--that Sir Henry Norland was trying, for some reason or another, to get back to England, and that although the lugger was commanded by an Englishman, she was undoubtedly a French chasse maree from Saint Malo.
But the lieutenant had got it into his head that he had overhauled a smuggling vessel laden with what would turn into prize-money for himself and men, and the thought that she might be bound on a political errand did not cross his mind.
"I'll search fully," said Leigh; and bidding the sailor with the long pigtail stay where he was, the young officer bent down and crept in under the half-deck just as the fainting girl recovered.
As she caught sight of Hilary she made a snatch at his hand, and