“Give up! I arrest you in the name of the King!” cried the foremost of the men. He presented a pistol at the head of the kneeling man. “Take him!” he screamed to his following, and before Rust could so much as rise, on his wounded foot, he was suddenly struggling in a mass of men who had fallen upon him.
He got to his feet. He knocked three of the constables endways. But his strength was gone quickly, so long had he been famished, and so far had he taxed his endurance. They overpowered him, making a noise of mad confusion. They threw him toward a chair. He made one cry of anguish and protest. Three of the scrambling clods fell together upon the little partner, and when they arose, his little heart had ceased to beat.
The farmer-miser now came worming his way through the door. He was laughing like a wolf.
“You’ve got him!” he cried. “I told you! I told you! Heh, heh, heh. I’m not in league with thieves and murderers. Here, here, take your silver! I’ll none of your silver!”
He took from his pocket the coin which the rover had paid him to take back the Englishman’s horse and threw it hysterically down at Adam’s feet.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
LODGINGS FOR THE RETINUE.
The beef-eaters arrived in the afternoon of the same day that Adam was arrested. Alighting from the coach, they did exactly what he had feared they would. They wended their way promptly to the Crow and Arrow.
Randolph and his henchmen, having missed their intended prey, at their first attempt, were engaged elsewhere in the town, attempting to make good their failure. Believing Rust would return and attempt to see Mistress Merrill, Randolph kept one or two of his creatures in the vicinity of David Donner’s house day and night. But Gallows, being for the time totally disabled, had been domiciled at the tavern, in a small apartment off the tap-room, where he spent many hours of the day roaring out his exceeding displeasure at the turn of events and the consequences thereof, into which his friends had brought him.
Pike and Halberd appeared at the inn when the place was all but deserted. Naturally the tavern had become popular with the Royalists, but it had been gradually falling into disfavor with sailors and dock hands for several years.