"My name is Septimus Quinn," said Septimus, and only just remembered to add, "Midshipman."
He made his best bow, Lady Barry inclined her head graciously, and Philippa dropped a curtsey.
"We must see to our baggage," said Lady Barry. "Come, Philippa. No doubt we shall meet on the coach, Mr. Quinn."
They went out of the coffee-room. Septimus paid for his dinner and went to move his sea-chest outside ready for the coming of the coach. The sunshine of morning had gone, and the sky was covered with dark clouds. Septimus had been wishing that his place on the coach had been an "outside", but now he felt he was fortunate. If it was going to rain, the top of a coach was an uncomfortable place to be for a two-hour journey.
The two farmers came out of the inn and walked away after a gloomy glance at the sky; evidently they were not travelling by the coach. Septimus's eye was caught by a handbill stuck on the wall of the inn. The print was small and blurred, and to read it more easily he got his steel-rimmed spectacles out of his pocket and put them on. The notice was headed roo GUINEAS REWARD! and offered that amount for the apprehension of "a Highway Thief or Toby-Man styling himself Jeremy Craw," who had held up a coach near Richmond some weeks before. As he was reading it a step sounded behind him and a harsh voice spoke.
"Hah! Thinking of catching this shore pirate, I presume?" Septimus straightened up and looked round. The red-faced officer was looking at him as if he was a particularly loathsome insect.
"Good gad!" he exclaimed in mock horror. "Spectacles! A spectacled midshipman-never heard of such a thing, by Hector! Hah! Anyone'd mistake you for a learned man!"
Septimus appeared to consider the point for a moment. "They might mistake me for one," he admitted; and there was a faint but distinct emphasis on the "me".
The red-faced man stiffened and his protruding blue eyes sparkled angrily.
"See here, my lad!" he barked, and now there was a threatening ring in his voice. "You'll address me as 'sir' and you'll lift your hat when you speak. Understand? If I couldn't see with half an eye that you're an ignorant young lubber who's never been to sea, I'd report you to your captain, whoever he may be! Now then, do as I order you-salute!"
Septimus saw that he had the worst of it this time. He lifted his cocked hat without any trace of impudence. "Yes-sir!" he said.
"Hah!" snorted the officer. "When you're out of baby-clothes you'll learn that we say aye aye in the Navy, not yes, sir like a confounded waiter. Remember Lieutenant Pyke told you that. Hah!"
With a final snort he stalked away. It occurred to Septimus that his first contact with a real sea-officer had not been very encouraging; and he disliked Lieutenant Pyke more than ever. Still, he told himself, the officers of H.M. frigate Althea would probably be less unpleasant. At that moment a thunder of wheels and hooves came to his ears, rapidly approaching, and the clear notes of a bugle-horn rang in Petersfield High Street. The Highfiyer mailcoach dashed up in fme style and pulled up before the Red Lion with its four horses panting and sweating.
"Five minutes honly!" bellowed the guard, jumping down from his high seat at the back-Septimus noted the blunderbuss in its big leather holster strapped there. "Mount all, if you please!"
Exactly five minutes later the Highfiyer clattered away on the last stage of its journey to Portsmouth. There were five passengers travelling "inside": Lady Barry, her daughter, and Mr. Midshipman Quinn occupied one seat, and facing them were Lieutenant Pyke and a lean man in a brown travelling-coat who appeared to be asleep with his hat pulled over his eyes.
The Highfiyer 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]eremy Craw the highwayman. Once, when Septimus half-awoke, it was to find that the Highfiyer 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.