Then Walter set aside his tablets and hastened to find Sainton, who was eating an extra heavy supper on the set principle that a good deal might happen ere breakfast.
“Roger,” he said, quietly, unconscious in his perplexity of the pain in his voice, “here is ill news.”
“Why, what ails thee, lad?” demanded the giant, suspending his assault on the haunch of a deer, though, to be sure, he had his mouth full.
“You remember Fra Pietro, who saved us from the Inquisition?”
“Remember him!” cried Roger. “I shall forget my own name first.”
Mowbray pointed to the dying light on the western horizon. Against the golden purple of the sky was silhouetted the indigo line of the great central plain of India.
“He is among those unhappy people,” he said. “Unless I err greatly he is there because he helped us to escape. Perchance he was banished because they feared to put him to death. Roger, what say you?”
“Say! What is there to say! Sit thee down, lad, and eat while we think. We mun have him out, whole and hearty, though every cut-throat between here and hell barred the way.”