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.
For, indeed, the Captain was now playing not merely a double, but a triple and perhaps a quadruple game.

He was not only playing for William against James, and for James against William, but for the Earl against both, and for himself above all.

For the moment he wished to get to Harwich with power over the two old men who (as he conceived it) were defrauding him of his privileges; and to obtain full possession of those privileges he must stand well with William, who at present suspected him.
What better proof could he offer that his journey had been all in his master's interest than by engaging the six galleys at Dunkirk in an attack upon Harwich, and forewarning the King of his design?
Or how could the Earl have a better chance of clearing himself of the King's suspicions than by receiving this warning and passing it on to the King?
Unfortunately this accomplished schemer omitted to take account of three accidents, for the simple reason that he could not have anticipated them: first, the two old men whom he meant to terrify at Harwich were at that moment in Holland; and, second, the son, in whose name he meant to terrify them, slept every night within a foot of his head, a galley-slave, disguised beyond recognition and filled with a just resentment.

Number three will be mentioned hereafter.
The little fishing-smack sailed out of Dunkirk that evening, an hour after sunset.
During the next three days Captain Salt worked hard.

Sufficient stores were laid in to last for a week's cruise.