It would be another good night's work. Fontenay had since disappeared, but then, at dusk the previous day, the strangers met him, as promised, in the sheltered reach from which, disguised as a fisherman, he normally set out with his hogsheads and-so far as he could ever determine their identities-the occasional Royalist agent or Romish priest. His new passengers had been puffing heavily as they clambered aboard. He caught a good view of one of them in the moonlight: a corpulent figure, red-faced as an innkeeper's wife, with hooded eyes, a sensuous mouth, and a gross, well-fed belly that would have done credit to a London alderman. Hardly a seafaring man. Would he take ill in the smack, as so many of them did, and retch over the gunwales? Amazingly, he did not. But throughout the ensuing voyage the three men spoke not a word, neither to Calfhill nor to each other, even though Calfhill-something of a linguist, as his trade required-attempted to draw them in English, French, Dutch, Italian and Spanish.

Now, still in silence, they were staggering towards the snorting stallions, the dry osiers crackling underfoot. Calfhill found himself wondering for the dozenth time which country-or which party within which country-they represented. All three seemed to be gentlemen, which was unusual, because in Calfhill's experience spying was not exactly a gentleman's occupation. Most of the men he smuggled were a foul-mouthed bunch of villains-bravos, bungs, cutpurses, nose-slitters, ruffians of every description, all of them recruited in the worst bawdy-houses and taverns of London or Paris and then paid a slave's wages to betray their friends and countries, which most were only too eager to do. But these fellows? They looked too soft for such rough-and-tumble recreations. The palms of the fat one, as he handed over the remaining coins, had been smooth and plump as those of a lady.