“Said like a scholar,” Halberd assured him.
“We do this honor to your house for his sake,” Pike added.
The two sat them down and the landlord hustled them out the vilest drink he could draw, tampered with, as it was, to add some crude substance, the effect of which on the brain was overpowering. The fellow saw the beef-eaters drinking and waited for nothing more. He scampered away from the rear of his place, as fast as his limbs could convey him.
Fifteen minutes later a small army of constables arrived, captured the two brain-fuddled beef-eaters without the slightest resistance and carried them off to the sumptuous apartments of the city jail. There, with aching heads and crestfallen countenances, they discovered themselves to be, when the baleful effects of their drink had somewhat abated.
“By my fighting hand!” said Halberd, “I’d not be sworn that we have not been tricked.”
CHAPTER XXXV.
GARDE OBTAINS THE JAIL KEYS.
Unbeknown to his retinue, Adam was accommodated in the same jail where Pike and Halberd had been landed while the evening was still comparatively young. The body of the little Narragansett, brutally snatched from Adam’s arms, had likewise been brought into Boston.
Randolph had lost no time in having Rust examined and declared a prisoner of the state, charged with a whole category of crimes against the peace and dignity of the King. To all of this, and to nearly all of their questions, Rust had made no reply whatsoever. He realized the uselessness of pitting his one voice against those of half a dozen perjured rascals, who came about him the moment it was known he had finally been taken, ready to swear to anything which would be likeliest to jeopardize his life.
Thus, before half-past eight that night, the whole of Boston was wagging its tongue over an astonishing story, instigated at once by Edward Randolph. This dangerous, blood-thirsty rascal, Rust, had been taken in the forest, whither he had fled to join his Indian wife, and in his struggles to avoid arrest he had slain his half-Indian child.