"They are to be inveigled, those two helpless women--they are very helpless, remember!--in some way to Plaistow Level. How that is to be done, you--we--must think over; then, once there, they will be seized upon by a boat's crew from the Nederland and carried on board. Being in the ship--well! you know the rest."
"But when? When, man? That cannot be done in a moment. We must have time wherein to inveigle them. When is it to be?"
"I have thought of that. Of how to give you time. Only, it must be done before the husband returns, and that is on Wednesday." (Surely Granger's memory was failing him!) "On Wednesday--to-morrow week. What say you, therefore, to Sunday night? By then, some scheme can be contrived to lure those two helpless women to their doom."
"Contrived! Contrived! Faith! my mind is not quite so quick as it was. Contrived! But how?"
"It may be done, perhaps. Yet, Bufton, think of what you condemn them to. Think, I say. To what is slavery, though not called by that name--to misery, despair. And both are young and both are fair. If they fall into the hands of unscrupulous planters, or of the French colonists in the South, then--then!--well! one is your wife, Bufton, while the other is an innocent gentlewoman, though your enemy's wife. Think on it."
If Lewis Granger was, indeed, trying to arouse some sentiment of humanity in Bufton's heart, he had taken the very worst way to do it; while, if he was but working on one of the worst sides of the man's nature--if, indeed, he was laying a spark to a train of fire already prepared--he had taken the surest way. For, now, with his most evil look upon his face, and with a glance that was revolting to Granger, he said--
"What in the devil's name care I what befalls them? Anne Pottle was merciless to me; let her die in the colonies, or go to the first Southern planter's arms that open to her. Either way it quits me of her. While for that other--that white-faced wife of the insolent sailor--well! he will have missed his heiress as much as I have done. And," he continued, chuckling, "if both of us lose our wives, maybe we can find others."
"You are implacable."
"I am implacable. Curse them all, have they not ruined me between them!"
"With Anne I could, perhaps, understand your desire; but with the other--she has not wronged you. And--you have a sword--there is another revenge open to you."