“Aye, witchcraft,” replied Captain Carteret, the first to recover from the surprise. “’Tis little, madame, that you can have to do with this crime, which makes the bravest and boldest to shudder in fear. For the evil repute of it and the terror it has wrought, has spread to Elizabeth town, even from Salem.”
“Perchance I may have more to do with it than at first appears,” said Lucille. Then I happened to remember something of a certain document she had.
“Let us consider,” went on Carteret, moving a little away from me, and taking care not to look me in the eye. “Simon, you had this warrant, and when you gave it to me I supposed it was for treason against His Most Gracious Majesty, as you stated. ’Tis so endorsed on the outside. How came you by it?”
“From Sir George Keith,” answered Simon, “as he lay dying on the sands, slain----”
“Nay, not slain,” I interrupted sternly, “speak the truth. Not slain, but killed in a fair fight, though it was not my sword that dealt the fatal blow.”
“When he lay dying,” went on Simon, correcting himself, but, otherwise, not heeding me, “he called me, his bond servant, to him, and made me swear an oath that I would take the warrant, and following Captain Amherst, command the first King’s representative I met, to serve it. This I did, for Sir George obtained permission from Captain Amherst, that I might accompany him to this place.”
“Said he what the warrant was for?” asked Carteret.
“Only that it was for treason,” responded Simon. “I marked that he pulled two documents from his pocket, looked at them both, and giving me one, replaced the other in his breast. Then he died, and we buried him in the sands.”
I knew then what had occurred. Sir George had made an error. He possessed the original warrant of treason against me, and also the one for witchcraft that he had been at pains to secure in Salem. The two documents were together, and, knowing that the charge of being a witch had failed, he sought, even though he knew he would be dead, to have me apprehended on the other. But he had given the wrong warrant to Simon. So that now the only document I feared was buried with the dead. Ere this the sea had probably washed away all trace of the grave, and, mayhap, the silent occupant.
I was a free man!