"The crew are all with him. They think it a shame that a lad like this
should be hauled to London as a prisoner charged with treasonable
practices; and sailors, when they once get an idea into their head, are
as obstinate as Highland cattle. I have told them that he drew a sword
and held the staircase against us all while a noted traitor made his
escape, and that he ran one of us through the shoulder, and they only
shouted with laughter, and said he was a brave young cock. Like as not,
if they had a chance, these men would aid him to escape, and then we
should have to answer for it, and heavily too; loss of place and
imprisonment would be the least of what we might expect; so though, while
at sea and in full daylight he can do as he pleases, we must be doubly
vigilant at night, or in port if the vessel should have to put in."

Accordingly, to the great disgust of the sailors the watch by turns stood
sentry outside Ronald's door at night, thereby defeating a plan which the
sailors had formed of lowering a boat the first night they passed near
land, and letting Ronald make his escape to shore.

The wind was favourable until the vessel rounded the Land's End. After
that it became baffling and fickle, and it was more than three weeks
after the date of her sailing from Glasgow that the vessel entered the
mouth of the Thames. By this time Ronald's boyish spirits had allayed all
suspicion on the part of his guards. He joked with the sailors, climbed
about the rigging like a cat, and was so little affected by his position
that the guards were convinced that he was free from the burden of any
state secret, and that no apprehension of any serious consequence to
himself was weighing upon him.

"Poor lad!" the head warder said; "he will need all his spirits. He will
have hard work to make the king's council believe that he interfered in