CHAPTER THIRTY SIX.
THE LUGGER'S RETURN.
The lieutenant staggered back from the effects of the blow.

But recovering, he whipped out his sword and made at Bigley, who hesitated for a moment and then dashed up the cliff-side, dodging in and out among the rocks, and he was twenty yards away before the lieutenant had gone ten, and gaining at every leap.
Seeing that he could not catch him, the lieutenant drew a pistol from his belt and would have fired, but my father caught his arm.
"Stop, sir," he cried; "he is but a boy." By this time the coxswain and four men had leaped ashore and run to their leader's side.
"Up and bring him back," shouted the lieutenant fiercely, and wresting his arm free he fired at Bigley, but where the bullet went nobody could say, it certainly did not go very near Bigley, who knew every rock and crevice on the side of the headland, and wound his way in and out, and higher and higher, leaving his pursuers far behind.
"Forward! Quick!" roared the lieutenant; but it did not seem to me that the sailors got on very quickly, for they kept on losing ground, and it was so hopeless an affair at last that they were called off, and descended to follow their officer to the boat.
He did not come near us where we stood in a group, and we saw him spring into the gig; but all at once he leapt out again and walked swiftly to us.
"Here," he said authoritatively, as if he had forgotten something, and he pointed to the cottage.

"Whose house is that ?" "Mine," said my father promptly.
The lieutenant looked disappointed, and turned sharply back again.
"It is my house," said my father as soon as the officer was out of hearing, and as if speaking to himself.

"If he had said, `who lives there ?' it would have been a different thing.

He would have burnt and destroyed everything." We stood watching the gig as the lieutenant returned and it was pushed off.