The Living Left Among the Dead—A Wild Chase on a Wild Night Stopped by a Ghost.  
On turning the corner of one of those houses on the beach of Deal which stand so close to the sea that in many cases they occupy common ground with the boats, Tommy found himself suddenly close to a group of men, one of whom, a very tall man, was addressing the others in an excited tone.
 
“I’ll tell ’ee wot it is, lads, let’s put ’im in a sack an’ leave him in the Great Chapel Field to cool hisself.” (The “Great Chapel Field” was the name formerly applied by the boatmen to Saint George’s Churchyard.)
 
“Sarve him right, the beggar,” said another man, with a low laugh, “he’s spoilt our game many a night. What say, boys? heave ’im shoulder high?”
 
The proposal was unanimously agreed to, and the party went towards an object which lay recumbent on the ground, near to one of those large capstans which are used on this part of the Kentish coast to haul up the boats. The object turned out to be a man, bound hand and foot, and with a handkerchief tied round the mouth to insure silence. Tommy was so near that he had no difficulty in recognising in this unfortunate the person of old Coleman, the member of the coast-guard who had been most successful in thwarting the plans of the smugglers for some years past. Rendered somewhat desperate by his prying disposition, they had seized him on this particular night, during a scuffle, and were now about to dispose of him in a time-honoured way.
 
Tommy also discovered that the coast-guard-man’s captors were Long Orrick, Rodney Nick, and a few more of his boatmen acquaintances. He watched them with much interest as they enveloped Coleman’s burly figure in a huge sack, tied it over his head, and, raising him on their shoulders bore him away.
 
Tommy followed at a safe distance, but he soon stopped, observing that two of the party had fallen behind the rest, engaged apparently in earnest conversation. They stood still a few minutes under the lee of a low-roofed cottage. Tommy crept as close to them as possible and listened.
 
“Come, Rodney Nick,” said one of the two, whose height proclaimed him to be Long Orrick, “a feller can’t talk in the teeth o’ sich a gale as this. Let’s stand in the lee o’ this old place here, and I’ll tell ye in two minits wot I wants to do. You see that old sinner Jeph refuses pint-blank to let me use his ‘hide;’ he’s become such a hypocrite that he says he won’t encourage smugglin’.”
 
“Well, wot then?” inquired Rodney Nick.
 
“W’y, I means to make ’im give in,” returned Long Orrick.
 
“An’ s’pose he won’t give in?” suggested Rodney.
 
“Then I’ll cut his throat,” replied Orrick, fiercely.
 
“Then I’ll have nothin’ to do with it.”
 
“Stop!” cried the other, seizing his comrade by the arm as he was turning to go away. “A feller might as well try to joke with a jackass as with you. In coorse I don’t mean that; but I’ll threaten the old hypocrite and terrify him till he’s half dead, and then he’ll give in.”
 
“He’s a frail old man,” said Rodney; “suppose he should die with fright?”
 
“Then let him die!” retorted Long Orrick.
 
“Humph; and s’pose he can’t be terrified?”
 
“Oh! get along with yer s’posin’. Will ye go or will ye not? that’s the question, as Shukspere’s ghost said to the Hemperer o’ Sweden.”
 
“Just you an’ me?” inquired Rodney.
 
“Ain’t we enough for an old man?”
 
“More nor enough,” replied Rodney, with a touch of sarcasm in his tone, “if the old boy han’t got friends with him. Don’t ye think Bax might have took a fancy to spend the night there?”
 
“No,” said Long Orrick; “Bax is at supper in Sandhill Cottage, and he ain’t the man to leave good quarters in a hurry. But if yer afraid, we’ll go with our chums to the churchyard and take them along with us.”
 
Rodney Nick laughed contemptuously, but made no reply, and the two immediately set off at a run to overtake their comrades. Tommy Bogey followed as close at their heels as he prudently could. They reached the walls of Saint George’s Church, or the “Great Chapel,” almost at the same moment with the rest of the party.
 
The form of the old church could be dimly seen against the tempestuous sky as the smugglers halted under the lee of the churchyard wall like a band of black ghosts that had come to lay one of their defunct comrades, on a congenial night.
 
At the north end of the burying-ground of Saint George’s Church there is a spot of ground which is pointed out to visitors as being the last resting-place of hundreds of the unfortunate men who fell in the sea-fights of our last war with France. A deep and broad trench was dug right across the churchyard, and here the gallant tars were laid in ghastly rows, as close together as they could be packed. Near to this spot stands the tomb of one of Lord Nelson’s young officers, and beside it grows a tree against which Nelson is said to have leaned when he attended the funeral.
 
It was just a few yards distant from this tree that the smugglers scaled the wall and lifted over the helpless body of poor Coleman. They did it expeditiously and in dead silence. Carrying him into the centre of the yard, they deposited the luckless coast-guard-man flat on his back beside the tomb of George Philpot, a man who had done good service in his day and generation—if headstones are to be believed. The inscription, which may still be seen by the curious, runs thus:—
A Tribute to the
 
Skill and Determined Courage
 
Of the Boatmen of Deal,
 
And in Memory of
 
George Philpot,
 
Who Died March 22, 1850.
“Full many lives he saved
 
With his undaunted crew;
 
He put his trust in Providence,
 
And cared not how it blew.”
 
In the companionship of such noble dead, the smugglers left Coleman to his fate, and set off to finish their night’s work at old Jeph’s humble cottage.
 
Tommy Bogey heard them chuckle as they passed the spot where he lay concealed behind a tombstone, and he was sorely tempted to spring up with an unearthly yell, well knowing that the superstitious boatmen would take him for one risen from the dead, and fly in abject terror from the spot; but recollecting the importance of discretion in the work which now devolved on him, he prudently restrained himself.
 
The instant they were over the wall Tommy was at Coleman’s side. He felt the poor man shudder, and heard him gasp as he cut the rope that tied the mouth of the sack; for Coleman knew well the spot to which they had conveyed him, and his face, when it became visible, was ghastly white and covered with a cold sweat caused by the belief that he was being opened out for examination by some inquisitive but unearthly visitor.
 
“It’s only me,” said Tommy with an involuntary laugh. “Hold on, I’ll set you free in no time.”
 
“Hah!” coughed Coleman when the kerchief was removed from his mouth, “wot a ’orrible sensation it is to be choked alive!”
 
“It would be worse to be choked dead,” said Tommy.
 
“Cut the lines at my feet first, lad,” said Coleman, “they’ve a’most sawed through my ankle bones. There, that’s it now, help me to git up an’ shake myself.”
 
A few minutes elapsed before he recovered the full use of his benumbed limbs. During this period, the boy related all he had heard, and urged his companion to “look alive.” But Coleman required no urging. The moment he became aware of what was going on he felt for his cutlass, which the smugglers had not taken the trouble to remove, and, slapping Tommy on the back, stumbled among the tombs and over the graves towards the wall, which he vaulted with a degree of activity that might have rendered a young man envious. Tommy followed like a squirrel, and in a very few minutes more they were close at the heels of Long Orrick and his friends.
 
While they hurried on in silence and with cautious tread Coleman matured his plans. It was absolutely necessary that the utmost circumspection should be used, for a man and a boy could not hope to succeed in capturing six strong men.
 
“Run, Tommy, to the beach and fetch a friend or two. There are sure to be two of the guard within hail.”
 
Tommy was off, as he himself would have said, like a shot, and on gaining the beach almost ran into the arms of a young coast-guard-man named Supple Rodger, to whom he breathlessly told his tale.
 
“Stop, I’ll call out the guard,” said Rodger, drawing a pistol from the breast-pocket of his overcoat. But Tommy prevented him, explained that it was very desirable to catch the villains in the very act of breaking into old Jeph’s cottage, and hurried him away.
 
At the back of the cottage they found Coleman calmly observing the proceedings of the smugglers, one of whom was calling in a hoarse whisper through the keyhole. Apparently he received no reply, for he swore angrily a good deal, and said to his comrades more than once, “I do b’lieve the old sinner’s dead.”
 
“Come, I’ll burst in the door,” said the voice of Long Orrick, savagely.
 
The words were followed by a crash; and the trampling of feet in the passage proved that the slender fastenings of the door had given way.
 
“Now, lads,” cried Coleman, “have at ’em!”
 
He struck a species of port-fire, or bluelight, against the wall as he spoke; it sprang into a bright flame, and the three friends rushed into the cottage.
 
The smugglers did not wait to receive them. Bu............