"Ah!" sighed the barber. "Then peradventure Timothy hath, after all, been slain?"
"As like as not," nodded Sir Walter; "as like as not. And you may take it that since naught hath been heard of the Pilgrim, she hath either gone to the bottom in the battle, or else been broken on the rocks of the Western Isles, as so many others were in the great storm that followed on the heels of the fight."
"The rascal was full eager to join the Revenge," continued the barber, "and did declare most positively to me that Sir Richard had promised him a berth. 'Twas his desire to be with his young master, Master Gilbert Oglander, that took him away—"
"Touching Master Gilbert Oglander," broke in Christopher Pym, addressing Sir Walter Raleigh, "he was on board the Revenge. I pray you, Sir Walter, I pray you, tell me is there aught of news concerning the lad?"
Sir Walter shook his head.
"No," he answered. "Much do I fear me that he hath gone with the rest. And 'tis a pity if it be so, for now that the vile traitor, his uncle, hath paid the penalty of his treachery—"
"The penalty!" interrupted Christopher Pym. "Hath he then been proven guilty?"
"Ay," returned Raleigh. And at this the whole room was silent, for the information was new. Sir Walter Raleigh, resting his elbows on the arms of his chair, held his two hands in front of him, busying his be-ringed fingers with adjusting the outer leaf of tobacco about his cigar. "Ay," he went on, "Jasper hath paid the penalty, for being found guilty by the judgment of the Star Chamber, he was on Monday morning last beheaded on Tower Hill."
Sir Walter paused, and having adjusted his cigar to his satisfaction he took up the fire-tongs, and with them picked out a piece of burning wood from the fire the while he lighted the end of his cigar.
"You may be sure," he went on, "that 'twas not as Lord Champernoun that the rascal was tried. For apart from the fact that he had not yet proved that his nephew, Master Gilbert Oglander, was dead, and that therefore he was himself by right of succession the real Lord Champernoun—apart from this, I say, he had neither taken out his license as a baron nor taken his seat in Her Majesty's House of Peers. He had been over eager to claim his dead father's name and estates, you see, my masters, and by very reason of his too great eagerness he revealed his trickery and the vile treachery that lay behind it."