Beggars, sham hawkers, deserters, came in succession to swell the list of prisoners in the London gaols.
Jack and his friend Bates had withdrawn to the country.
There, in almost inaccessible thicket, they constructed a hut of branches and leaves, very skilfully contrived to deceive the eyes of the passers by.
Only at night did they venture out into the neighbouring commons, and the fears their audacity inspired prevented the peasants from betraying their place of concealment.
Ned Warbeck and others undertook to effect this difficult capture.
Four of them, disguised as wood-cutters, with two others to assist them, and who were well acquainted with every nook and corner of the forest, determined to enter at nightfall under the trees of Hornsey Wood, and bivouacked in silence.
At about four o’clock in the morning they surrounded the retreat of the two outlaws.
Ned Warbeck and one of the wood-cutters, with musket in hand, and finger on trigger, gently drew aside the leafy door, when they perceived the terrible couple lying amid bundles of hay and picked bones.
A gun, loaded and cocked, was lying between them.
Captain Jack opened his eyes, awoke less by the noise than by the vague uneasiness that must ever haunt the guilty.