“Don’t let them hang me, Jack Rangsley,” I sobbed. “You know I’m no spy. Don’t let ’em hang me, Jack.”
He rode his horse up to me, and caught me by the collar.
“Hold your tongue,” he said roughly. He began to make a set speech, anathematizing runners. He moved to tie our feet, and hang us by our finger-nails over the quarry edge.
A hubbub of assent and dissent went up; then the crowd became unanimous. Rangsley slipped from his horse.
“Blindfold ’em, lads,” he cried, and turned me sharply round.
“Don’t struggle,” he whispered in my ear; his silk handkerchief came cool across my eyelids. I felt hands fumbling with a knot at the back of my head. “You’re all right,” he said again. The hubbub of voices ceased suddenly. “Now, lads, bring ’em along.”
A voice I knew said their watchword, “Snuff and enough,” loudly, and then, “What’s agate?”
Someone else answered, “It’s Rooksby, it’s Sir Ralph.”
The voice interrupted sharply, “No names, now. I don’t want hanging.” The hand left my arm; there was a pause in the motion of the procession. I caught a moment’s sound of whispering. Then a new voice cried, “Strip the runners to the shirt. Strip ’em. That’s it.” I heard some groans and a cry, “You won’t murder us.” Then a nasal drawl, “We will sure—ly.” Someone else, Rangsley, I think, called, “Bring ’em along—this way now.”
After a period of turmoil we seemed to come out of the crowd upon a very rough, descending path; Rangsley had called out, “Now, then, the rest of you be off; we’ve got enough here”; and the hoofs of heavy horses sounded again. Then we came to a halt, and Rangsley called sharply from close to me: