if she could eat anything from our table, to which the baggage sends
reply that she feels a little easier this morning and could fancy a dish
of black puddings. These delicacies her father carried to her, being
charged by the Don to tell her that we should be gone for a couple of
days, and that in our absence she might command whatever she felt was
necessary to her complete recovery against our return. Then I told Don
Sanchez how we had resolved to tell Moll no more of our purpose than was
necessary for the moment, which pleased him, I thought, mightily, he
saying that our success or failure depended upon secrecy as much as
anything, for which reason he had kept us in the dark as much as ever it
was possible.

About eight o'clock three saddle nags were brought to the door, and we,
mounting, set out for London, where we arrived about ten, the roads
being fairly passable save in the marshy parts about Shoreditch, where
the mire was knee-deep; so to Gracious Street, and there leaving our
nags at the Turk inn, we walked down to the Bridge stairs, and thence
with a pair of oars to Greenwich. Here, after our tedious chilly voyage,
we were not ill-pleased to see the inside of an inn once more, and Don
Sanchez, taking us to the King's posting-house, orders a fire to be
lighted in a private room, and the best there was in the larder to be
served us in the warm parlour. While we were at our trenchers Don
Sanchez says:

"At two o'clock two men are coming hither to see me. One is a master
mariner named Robert Evans, the other a merchant adventurer of his
acquaintance whom I have not yet seen. Now you are to mark these two men
well, note all they say and their manner of speaking, for to-morrow you
will have to personate these characters before one who would be only too
glad to find you at fault."