“Bob!” I ejaculated, as a feeling of delight sent a flush of blood to my cheeks, and I felt hot and excited once more, “you don’t mean to say that—”
“But I just do, sir. ’Tarn’t likely I should run all this risk if I didn’t mean it.”
“You hear, Mr Frewen,” I whispered.
“Yes, but—”
“Look here,” said Bob Hampton, angrily, “am I to creep in and stuff something into your mouth, Mr Dale, sir? You don’t know how sounds run on a still night like this. It’s grim death for me if I’m found out.”
“Then you are true to us all the same, Bob?” I cried, reaching out to lay my hand upon the man’s shoulder.
“True as gorspel, sir; and ready along with Neb Dumlow and Barney Blane to pitch old Frenchy overboard, or drown him in a water-cask, if you say the word, or Mr Frewen either, though I’d rayther take it from you, my lad, as you’re one of the officers of the Burgh Castle and it’d come better like than from our doctor, and no disrespectment either.”
“How are we to know that we are to trust you, Hampton?” said Mr Frewen.
“Tell you dreckly, sir, soon as I can get foot-hold. I’m pretty strong in the arms, but you can’t hang by them as long as you can stand on your legs, ’less you’re born a monkey, which I warn’t. You see there’s no board nor nothing to get a foot on, and I knows without trying that I couldn’t get through that window.”
“How can we help him, Dale?” whispered Mr Frewen. “I suppose we must trust him?”