Thomas Bettany stared at an artist in daring. This gold-worker had imaged, drawn and beaten out many a bold pattern, many an intricate and subtle. Now he said, “Come, deliver what material you may! How lies prison within and without? Who are there? Tell what you know. We have to-day which is Wednesday and to-morrow which is Thursday. The Vineyard must not sail before cockcrow Friday.”
“I could not buy Diccon there! I might beg him for love.”
“However you do it, you will do it. I see in fine air within gross air a ship that weighs anchor at dawn, Friday. Now, tell!”
Bettany described with minuteness that prison and its economy. “I have a man, John Cobb. His cousin Godfrey is gaoler.”
“So, thou seest!”
“But there is naught I know of that would buy Godfrey. Keys might be melted in his hold but he would not give them up! Town, castle and Church know Godfrey.”
“Then let him not know that they are gone.”
“That is not possible.”
“It is possible, or I would not see the Vineyard sailing Friday. Everything is possible save her burning. Can your man sit with Godfrey, drinking ale with him maybe, and come to handling and fingering keys great and small, and questioning, ‘This is great door, this inner ward, and this where she lies who burns a-Friday?’”