"He has not the ghost of a chance to escape me, my lord. You shall have him as fast as a bird in a cage."
"But you want a larger reward than a hundred pounds? How much?"
"I don't want a penny, my lord. I ask for what will cost you nothing."
"Shalt have it, whatever it is, only make thy word good," said he, leaning forward, his eyes fixed on me.
"The boon I ask is liberty for the prisoner on the rack."
"Release her," he ordered. "And now where is Vavasour."
"Here, my lord—I am he."
The earl rose from his seat, and sank back again, staring. The clerk let fall the pen with which he had been making notes. The four men who had lowered Bess to the floor gazed on me open-mouthed.
She was the first to speak. "Your lordship, this is a poor fellow who has had his head turned by trouble, and his craze is to think himself Frank Vavasour; but his true name is Jack Unwin. He has J.U. tattooed on his chest."
At a sign from the earl, the men laid hands on me and bared my breast, while the old nobleman sat choking with rage and mortification, glaring from me to Bess, and from Bess to me.