Mayne mounted the steep cottage staircase, Beaumanoir limping awkwardly in his wake into one of two rooms on the tiny landing. The moment they had crossed the threshold he perceived that the chamber was little better than a trap. The man downstairs would simply have him at his mercy, after admitting his companions and probably screwing up the door of the keeper's sleeping apartment. Locks and bolts to the primitive doors there were none. He recognized all too late that it would have been better to have insisted on the Yankee occupying this room and on remaining downstairs himself, when he would at least have formed a wedge between the traitor in the camp and his colleagues outside.
To stay the night in the room was out of the question, and he determined to put in practice the inspiration derived from "Colonel Walcot's" card.
"Mayne," he said, laying his hand on the astonished keeper's shoulder, "I must get out of this at once, without the gentleman below being aware of it, and you must help me."
"But, your Grace——" began Mayne.
"Don't withstand me," Beaumanoir cut short the protest. "I cannot go into a long explanation, but it's like this. That man is the colonel of my former regiment—an old brother officer, you understand. My name was Hanbury then, and he either does not, or pretends not to, recognize me. It is not a nice thing to have to confess, but I borrowed money in those days from Colonel Walcot, which never till now have I had it in my power to repay. It would distress me greatly to have that money mentioned before I have repaid it, as I shall do to-morrow, so if you can contrive to let me out without his knowledge I'll make for Prior's Tarrant and never forget your assistance."
Mayne scratched his grizzled head in pained perplexity. To his slow brain the incident of a wealthy nobleman fleeing in the dead of night from a creditor presented a startling incongruity, but gradually it recurred to him that he had heard that the new Duke had been "a bit wild" when in the army; and, after all, his reluctance to be recognized by the Colonel till he had had time to liquidate the debt seemed but natural.
"Yes, it can be done, your Grace," replied the keeper, softly opening the lattice casement. "The lean-to roof of the woodshed reaches right up here, and there's a pile of faggots against the shed. You can get down easy enough, and as it's the back of the house, if you are careful, he won't know anything about it. But I'll come, too, and show your Grace the way out of the wood."
"On no account, Mayne," said Beaumanoir quickly. "You'll be much more useful here. I'll find my way out of the wood all right, but you must go back to the kitchen and tell Colonel Walcot that I am going to bed. It's only a white lie, and here's a five-pound note on account of it. Stay with him as long as you can—half an hour at least—and then go to bed yourself."
"Very well, your Grace; I don't like it, but I'll do it."
"And see here, Mayne: there's one thing more. In the morning, or whenever Colonel Walcot discovers that I have gone away, tell him from me why I went, and that I intend to repay him all I owe him. All I owe him, don't forget that."