all our plans, only stipulating that we would guard one room for him in
each of our houses, that he might feel at home in our society whenever
he chanced to be in our neighbourhood. In all these arguments, there was
never one word of question from any of us as to the honesty of our
design. We had settled that, once and for all, before starting on this
expedition; and since then, little by little, we had come to regard the
Godwin estate as a natural gift, as freely to be taken as a blackberry
from the hedge. Nay, I believe Dawson and I would have contested our
right to it by reason of the pains we were taking to possess it.

And now, being in the month of June, and our year of exile (as it liked
us to call it) nigh at an end, Dawson one night put the question to Don
Sanchez, which had kept us fluttering in painful suspense these past six
months, whether he had saved sufficient by his labours, to enable us to
return to England ere long.

"Yes," says he, gravely, at which we did all heave one long sigh of
relief, "I learn that a convoy of English ships is about to sail from
Alicante in the beginning of July, and if we are happy enough to find a
favourable opportunity, we will certainly embark in one of them."

"Pray, Señor," says I, "what may that opportunity be; for 'tis but two
days' march hence to Alicante, and we may do it with a light foot in
one."

"The opportunity I speak of," answers he, "is the arrival, from Algeria,
of a company of pirates, whose good service I hope to engage in putting
us aboard an English ship under a flag of truce as redeemed slaves from
Barbary."