Meanwhile let me proceed with my remarks."
That same evening Captain Salt assumed the command and within half an
hour it was patent to every slave in the squadron that something
beyond the ordinary was afoot. The new commander began to issue
orders at once. Curiously enough, one of the first of these was
given to the fishing-smack with the green pennant, which had brought
him the Earl of Marlborough's letter five days before and had lain at
anchor ever since in the Basin. It was pretty well known to everyone
in Dunkirk that this little craft plied to and fro in the Jacobite
service and was allowed to pass the forts without challenge.
Indeed, she had a special permit. Therefore nobody wondered when
Captain Salt paid her red-bearded skipper a visit that evening, on
his way to the citadel; nor was the skipper astonished to receive a
letter for the Earl of Marlborough's secret agent at Ostend, and be
bidden to leave the harbour that night.
Yet the red-bearded skipper would have been considerably astonished
had he been able to read the cipher in which this letter was written,
or had he the faintest idea that the small mark on the corner of the
wrapper meant that it was to be translated at once and dispatched
post-haste to King William.
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