Midshipman Quinn

— 3 —

The Highflyer had not gone more than a mile along the Portsmouth road when rain began to fall heavily. Lieutenant Pyke asked Lady Barry if she would like the coach window pulled up, and introduced himself.

"Lady Barry?" he repeated when she informed him of her own name. "Can it be that you're the mother of Midshipman Charles Barry? Then by Hector —if you'll pardon me, my lady — your son and myself are shipmates!"

"Indeed!" replied Lady Barry without much enthusiasm. "You, sir, are of course the Lieutenant George Pyke of whom Charles has told me."

"Your ladyship's most obedient servant!" Pyke was all smiles.

"Delighted to make your ladyship's acquaintance. Hah!"

"Do you think, sir," asked Lady Barry, "that the coach will be late arriving at Portsmouth?"

"If she can keep up this rate of knots, ma'am-no. But I fear the rain will make the roads heavy. However, speaking of your son Charles, ma'am, I think him a fine young fellow. If all the midshipmen of His Majesty's Navy were as active and zealous" — here Septimus detected a scornful glance in his direction — "we should have no trouble in finding first-rate officers. Yes, ma'am, I find Charles Barry the very example of what a young gentleman—"

At this point Mr. Midshipman Quinn ceased to follow the conversation. The air in the coach had grown stuffy, and he began to feel as sleepy as Philippa Barry, who was already dozing in her seat beside him. Before he sank into uneasy slumber, however, Septimus happened to glance at the lean man in the brown travelling-coat, who was still motionless and silent in the corner. The man was not, as he seemed to be, asleep. Beneath the brim of his low-crowned hat one very bright black eye kept ceaseless watch out of the window.

That gleaming black eye seemed to flit in and out of Septimus Quinn's dreams, and always it was somehow linked with the name of Jeremy Craw the highwayman. Once, when Septimus half-awoke, it was to find that the Highflyer was no longer speeding at a rocking canter through the rain but going at a slower pace; evidently they had reached the place where the road began to climb through the gap of the South Downs before dipping and rising again to begin the last descent through Horndean to Portsmouth. The coach windows were steamed up, but someone had rubbed a patch of glass clear, and through it could be seen the thin rain and a dank white mist which it had raised from the warmer ground. Septimus slid back into sleep again.

He woke with a jerk. The coach was jolting to a sudden stand still. Men's voices yelled outside in the rain.

"Get clear, there!"

"Stand! Stand and deliver!"

"Here's for you, you—"

"Don't touch that gun, or—"

Above the sound of trampling hooves came the heavy report of a pistol, followed instantly by a groan and a thud from the coach roof.

Inside the coach there was consternation. Lady Barry stifled a shriek and clutched her daughter to her. Lieutenant Pyke, rasping out an oath, stumbled to his feet and tried to get his sword from its place on the rack above his head. Septimus, from force of habit, groped in his pocket for his spectacles but was now awake enough to realise that this was not the time to wear them. His fingers touched the "glass egg" that lay there. As for the lean man in the corner, he was sitting bolt upright and his little eyes were very bright.

"Everyone will please keep their places," he said commandingly; and his right hand held a short-barrelled pistol. "This coach has been stopped by highwaymen—"

"And you're an accomplice, by Hector!" roared Lieutenant Pyke, and flung himself bodily upon the lean man.

The first drawing in Midshipman Quinn's Log

Lady Barry shrieked in earnest, Pyke bellowed angrily, the lean man struggled and tried to shout something. Septimus caught a word or two. "Fool! . . . Bow Street. . . Jeremy Craw. . ."

And then the window flew down with a bang. In the square opening appeared a face-or part of a face. The grinning mouth was plain to see, but the upper half of the face was covered with a black mask through which hard grey eyes gleamed dangerously. A long pistol slid into view and rested on the sill, its muzzle slowly moving to point at each occupant of the coach in turn.

"I'll shoot if there's any tricks!" warned the highwayman sharply. "And if I shoot," he added grimly, "you'll be dead mutton-same as the guard!" His eyes fell upon Pyke and the lean man, who had disentangled themselves and were glaring at each other. "Well, well, well!" he chuckled. "If it isn't Mr. Prince of the Bow Street Runners! "

"It is," said the lean man between his teeth. "And if it hadn't been for this — this porpoise here, I'd have taken you,Jeremy Craw!"

"Better luck next time, Mr. Prince," grinned Craw. "Let's hope the naval porpoise is less of a fool at sea than he is ashore."

During this exchange Septimus had been cautiously peering to see what had become of Mr. Prince's pistol. As the highwayman finished speaking he spotted it. In the struggle with Pyke it had been dropped on the floor of the coach amongst the straw. Septimus was planning to edge it towards himself with his foot when Jeremy Craw's glance fell on it.

"Pick that up and give it to me!" he snapped. "Not you, Prince — the girl yonder! Quickly!"

Philippa Barry gave a little shudder and then bent to pick up the pistol. Septimus saw a sudden light flame in her eyes. She grabbed the pistol, levelled it swiftly at Craw — and screamed as his grip fastened on her wrist.

"Little vixen!" he snarled. "You'd bite, would you?" He dropped the pistol into his pocket. "You'd have done no harm if you'd pulled trigger — it wasn't cocked. But any more tricks and I'll mark your pretty face for life!"

"By Hector!" roared Pyke, purple in the face. "Would you hurt women, you — you shark?"

"I'll hurt anyone who tries to hurt me. Get into that corner, porpoise — right back where I can see you. Now then."

Jeremy Craw wrenched open the door of the coach and stood with one booted foot on the step, his pistol swinging to cover the five in the coach. Behind him Septimus could see the roadside trees looming dimly through a steamy mist, and a saddled horse cropping the grass.

"Listen here!" snapped Craw. "I'm a toby-man with no time to waste. I've had to shoot the guard and I've got my pal covering the coachman. I want everything you've got in your pockets — and you two females can take off your jewels and rings. No dallying, see? First to make a false move gets a bullet and I'll use the butt on the next."

"You'll swing for this!" gobbled Pyke, shaking with wrath.

"Not on your account, my fancy-man! No more talking fork out! Mr. Prince, I'll thank you to clasp your hands on top of your empty head, where I can see 'em. That's it." He turned to Lady Barry. "You first, madam. Hand over everything, and no harm'll come to you. Keep anything back — and I'll search you. See?"

"I will give you everything I have," said Lady Barry coldly. She took off a necklace, a bracelet, and three rings, and placed them in the highwayman's outstretched palm with her purse. Philippa, her face pale but composed, contributed a little purse and a bracelet. Jeremy Craw looked beyond her at Septimus, who had scarcely moved a muscle since the coach had stopped.

"You boy, there!" he barked, grinning unpleasantly. "You infant in fancy-dress — not dead, are you? Hand over! Money and any other little things you've got!"

"I—I have got a little thing here," faltered Septimus in a childish voice.

His fingers were in his pocket, closing round the "glass egg". It flashed through his mind that as an opportunity for testing it this occasion was unique. His hand came out of his pocket slowly, and then flicked like a lash of a whip. The glass egg flew straight and true for the centre of the black mask. There was a deafening bang, a screech from the highwayman, a whirl of acrid smoke, a fierce cry from Mr. Prince.

Septimus, who had flung himself forward as the home-made bombshell burst, saw through the smoke that Prince had gripped the toby-man's pistol arm and was forcing it down. The pistol fell from the man's hand and simultaneously Craw broke free. Septimus pounced on the fallen pistol and levelled it as the highwayman ran unsteadily for his horse. Jeremy Craw was barely five paces away when Septimus pulled the trigger. The bullet struck high, below the left shoulder, and the highwayman, flinging his arms wide, fell sprawling into the mud of the roadway and lay still.

Septimus and Mr. Prince sprang from the coach together — in time to see a dim figure galloping away into the mist. Jeremy Craw's "pal" had not waited to see the fate of his leader. The Bow Street Runner bent over the fallen toby-man for a moment and then straightened up.

"All's fine," he said with satisfaction. "He'll live to be strung up at Tyburn."

"The credit is to this young gentleman," said the voice of Lady Barry; she had dismounted from the coach, with Philippa. "If it had not been for him—"

"Without Mr. Prince's quick action, ma'am," Septimus put in swiftly, "my efforts wouldn't have been much use."

"All the same," said Mr. Prince, "you did the trick, sir. I'll see to it that you get a proportion of the reward in due course. But I'd like to know what was in that thing you threw."

"The substance known as Potassium Chlorate," began Septimus, "enclosed with a certain amount of Sulphur in a glass container—"

A hoarse voice from above their heads interrupted him.

"Ladies and sirs," it said, "my guard's been shot dead, pore feller, and that's bad. A celebrated highwayman's been took, and that's good. But good or bad, this 'ere coach 'as got to get to Portsmouth as quick as maybe."

They looked up to see the coachman's round face, somewhat pale after his fright, looking anxiously down at them. Mr. Prince nodded in a business-like fashion.

"Quite right," he said. "I had better explain, my lady, that I'm Dennis Prince of Bow Street, and it's my trade to run down rogues like this Jeremy Craw. I shall take charge of him from now on. And since his wound's not likely to keep him unconscious for long, I shall ask the Lieutenant to help me tie him up. There's rope in the boot of the coach."

Mr. Pyke, who had been standing in the background looking sheepish, gathered the remains of his dignity and stalked forward.

"Hah! Of course, Prince!" he rasped. "I—er—regret jumping on you as I did, but—er—anyone might have made the same mistake."

"You think so?" returned Mr. Prince coldly. "At least, I'm glad Mr. Quinn here made no mistake."

"Hah!" Pyke snorted. "It was the sheerest luck he had that contraption in his pocket."

"I think there was judgment as well as luck, sir," put in Lady Barry. "Neither of them your strong point, alas!"

The look that Lieutenant Pyke threw at Septimus was, as the midshipman afterwards remarked, a scorcher.

"Come!" said the Bow Street man, producing a stout rope from the boot. "Get my man safely tied, and on we go to Portsmouth."

"Mr. Quinn!" growled Lieutenant Pyke between his teeth. "Be so good as to lend a hand here."

Septimus raised his cocked hat.

"Aye aye, sir!" he said.