"But there are six horses in the stables. Will you be good enough to write down at what hour on what day Mr. Harry Whittington knocked at the Governor's door in Trent and told the poor gout-ridden man that the Princess and Mr. Wogan had put up at the Cervo Inn at Ala."
The soldier turned a startled face on Wogan.
"So you knew!" he cried.
"Oh, I knew," answered Wogan, suddenly. "Look at me! Did you ever see eyes so heavy with want of sleep, a face so worn by it, a body so jerked upon strings like a showman's puppet? Write, I tell you! We who serve the King are trained to wakefulness. Write! I am in haste!"
"Yet your King does not reign!" said the man, wonderingly, and he wrote. He wrote the truth about Harry Whittington; for Wogan was looking over his shoulder.
"Did he pay you to keep silence as to his share in the business?" asked Wogan, as the man scattered [pg 282] some sand over the paper. "There is no word of it in your handwriting."
The man added a sentence and a figure.
"That will do," said Wogan. "I may need it for a particular purpose;" and he put the letter carefully away in the pocket of his coat. "For a very particular purpose," he added. "It will be well for you to convey your party back with all haste to Trent. You are on the wrong side of the border."