“What would I say? Why, that you lied most damnably.”
“Have a care!” he whispered, rather than spoke, and his hand fell to his sword hilt with a quick motion. “Have a care! I have suffered much from you. Do not tempt me too far.”
“I am no traitor,” I said proudly, “for I have but now returned from the defense of Pemaquid, which, though it fell was only given up in the face of heavy odds, and because the garrison would not stand by me. I am no traitor. Ask the men who tramped the woods and sailed the sloops with me.”
“Then this must be in error,” was his sudden exclamation. He threw a parchment to me across the bed, behind which he still was, and, while I unrolled it he came out, and sat in the chair again. I recognized the royal arms of England.
“Read,” he said. And then he settled back in his chair most comfortably, as one disposed to listen to some pleasant tale.
I read. True enough it was a warrant for Sir Francis Dane, formerly of the army of “that arch-traitor” Duke Monmouth. All the way through I read the scroll, my heart growing heavier as I proceeded.
“Does it suffice?” he asked.
“Aye,” I answered, moodily.
I turned toward him.
“It is enough,” I went on, pacing back and forth. “But, look you, sir, I know not your name. Not that it matters greatly.”