cry went up from the men on the Thunderer's deck as they watched the ghastly sight. But at that very moment they had all they could do to claw off the land and save the Thunderer from the fate of the Seahorse. It was some days before the wind permitted them to return to the scene of the wreck, and they found not a vestige of the gallant ship or her brave company. [Pg 15] [Pg 16] [Pg 16] CHAPTER II The Comet coach, from London to York, left the Angel Inn, on the borders of Yorkshire, at three o'clock in the November afternoon, on the last stage of the journey. It was bitterly cold, and the low-hanging clouds held snow. Inside the tavern parlor the passengers hugged the fire and looked dismally out of the small-paned windows on the court-yard at the coach, to which the horses were being put, while the coachman, taking his last nip from a pewter pot at the kitchen window, chaffed the bar-maid and playfully flecked his whip at the postilion busy with the horses near by. Among the passengers lingering around the fire was Archy Baskerville. He still wore his uniform, which had grown excessively shabby; but he was not without money. He had engaged the box-seat, and had paid for it in a lordly manner, showing, meanwhile, with boyish vanity and imprudence, a handsome rouleau of gold. He[Pg 17] had a very handsome new cloak of dark-blue camlet, elegantly lined, and with a fur collar; and his seedy knee-breeches were ornamented with a costly pair of buckles. [Pg 17] The singular contrast in his dress could not fail to excite remark. An individual known as a bagman began to chaff him, while the other passengers listened and smiled. "Wot's the matter with your clothes, young man? Did you kill a French captain in that 'ere suit—as you won't change it?" Archy disdained to reply to this, and, wrapping his handsome cloak around him, produced a pair of pistols—not the great horse-pistols of the day, but of the kind used by officers; then he tightened the belt of the sword he wore, according to the custom in those days—all with an air of nonchalance that would have suited a man of twice his age. A pert young woman in a hat and feathers, and
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