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three men who had come on board the Rose of Devon by way of her gallery, and had entered the great cabin the night when Phil Marsham sat there at supper.

It then burst upon Phil that in the whole plain truth lay his only hope.

“I ran away from them — they had forced me into their service! — a week since. Nay, it is true! I am no liar! And it will pay you well to keep a sharp watch this night, for a vessel like enough to the Rose of Devon to be her twin is this minute lying behind yonder point.”

“Ah! And you sailed, I believe you said, from Bideford. Doubtless you have kept the day in mind?”

“Why, ’t was in early May. Or — stay! ’T was—”

“Enough! Enough! The master of — ”

"But though I marked neither the day of the week nor the day of the month, I remember the sailing well.”

“Doubtless,” quoth the captain dryly, ‘‘but it will save time and serve thy cause to speak only when I bid thee. Interrupt me not, but tell me next the name of the lawful master in whose charge thy most excellent ship sailed from Bideford.”

This keen and quiet captain in the King’s service was of no mind that his prisoner should tell with impunity such a story as he might make up on the moment. Accordingly he proceeded to draw forth by question after question such particular parts of the story as he himself desired to hear, now attacking the matter from one angle and now from another, watching his prisoner closely the while and all the time standing in such a place that the lad had no chance at all of escaping through the open window.