"You will let me finish my pipe and pot, won't you?" asked the spy. "You took me rather by surprise."
"If you are not long over them," answered Dick.
Bob meanwhile, had deftly searched the man for concealed weapons and had taken them all away, so that Hughson might not cheat them by killing himself. He drank a pot of homebrew and puffed at his pipe under the trees, and then the groom announced that his horse was ready and he was quickly in the saddle. He said nothing as he rode away between the two boys, but seemed to be thinking deeply.
"You rebels don't have very much money," he said at last. "What would you consider a fair amount to allow me to escape?"
"You have made two serious errors," replied Dick coolly. "First, we are not rebels, as I have frequently told you, and second we are not for sale. Do you think we are as mean as yourself, who associate with thieves and murderers to gain your ends? There is not money enough in the world to induce us to violate our oaths."
"But why should you deliver me up to death, when I have never done you harm?"
"You forget last night," tersely. "Who tied me in a sack and threw me into the river?"
"Well, but I gave you a knife to—"
"You did not. That was Tom Fletcher. You had nothing to do with it. You came out upon the river in a boat afterward to look for me, fearing that I would escape. Don't add lying to your other faults."
The man rode on in silence for ten or fifteen minutes, and then suddenly said: