"Lord love you, master, would you murder your own countryman?"
CHAPTER XL.
I FIND AN EXCELLENT FRIEND IN PLACE OF A CRUEL ENEMY.
Hearing these words, I held my hand for amazement, though the knife was within a span of his throat. In that instant it came across my mind that the letter which had so distracted me was not of Lady Biddy's writing. I had not hitherto questioned this matter; for, firstly, I knew not her hand; and, secondly, neither Lewis de Pino nor any one else we had met since our coming on these shores had comprehended one word of our language. The letter was badly writ in a large and painful hand, but that might have been owing to ill accommodation for writing; and, indeed, I had not regarded the manner of it, but only the matter. But now, hearing this fellow speak in English, it did, as I say, cross my mind that he had penned it.
This took no longer to present itself to my intelligence than a flash of a musket.
"Fellow," says I hoarsely, "was it you that wrote that letter to me."
"Ay," says he, "with a plague to it; for if I had not writ it I should not have got into this mess."
Whereupon I flung aside the knife, and, laying hold of his two hands, could have kissed him for my great delight, despite the suffering I had endured through his handiwork.
Then I covered my face with my hands for shame to think how I had wronged that pure sweet girl by leaping so quickly to an evil opinion of her; and to think she might have so fallen away from a noble condition, I burst out with tears, and sobbed like any child; and from that to think that she had not fallen away, and was still the same dear woman I had thought her, I fell to laughing; and, springing to my feet, cut a caper in the air like a very fool, and might have proceeded to further extravagances in my delirium but that my good angel (as I dubbed the fellow), laying his hands on me whispered: