"It is devil's work, all of it."
"Then the devil is busier than he seems, even after a night at Court," I said. "But be it whose work it will, I'll do it. I'll find what he hides. I'll drink of his cup. Come, you're glum! Drink, friend Darrell! Darrell, what's in his cup, what does he hide? Darrell, what does the King hide?"
I had caught him by the shoulder and was staring in his face. I was all aglow, and my eyes, no doubt, shone bright with excitement and the exhilaration of the wine. The look of me, or the hour of the night, or the working of his own superstition, got hold of him, for he sprang up, crying madly:
"My God, do you know?" and glared into my face as though I had been the very devil of whom I spoke.
We stood thus for a full minute. But I grew cool before my companion, wonder working the change in me sooner than confusion could in him. For my random ravings had most marvellously struck on something more than my sober speculations could discern. The man before me was mad—or he had a secret. And friend Darrell was no madman.
"Do I know?" I asked. "Do I know what? What could I, Simon Dale, know? What in Heaven's name is there to know?" And I smiled cunningly, as though I sought to hide knowledge by a parade of ignorance.
"Nothing, nothing," he muttered uneasily. "The wine's got into my head."
"Yet you've drunk but two glasses; I had the rest," said I.
"That damned Ranter has upset me," he growled. "That, and the talk of your cursed witch."