This was the more lamentable, added the friend, from there never being a better arranged plot, and one that promised a more certain result.
His arrest was the more regrettable still as, in the turmoil, the prisoner would most certainly be rescued and get away, so that he would elude the branding-iron and the galleys.
Though Captain Beausire had no settled opinions, he leaned toward royalty, so he began to deplore the check to the scheme, in the first place for the king's sake, and then for his own.
All at once he struck his brow, for he was illumined with a bright idea.
"Why, this first execution is to be mine!" he said.
"Of course, and it would have been a rich streak of luck for you."
"But you say that it will not matter who gives the cue, for the plot will burst out?"
"Yes. But who will do this, when I am caged, and can not communicate with the lads outside?"
"I," replied Beausire in lofty, tragic tones. "Will I not be on the spot, since it is I whom they are to put in the pillory? So I am the man who will cry out the arranged shouts; it is not so very hard a task, methinks."
"I always said you were a genius," remarked the captain's friend, after being wonder-struck.