"I'll be hanged if you haven't knocked it clean out of my head," replied Philip. "Let me think a moment—I have the cursedest memory."
He rose with a slowness, and an appearance of weakness, both mainly assumed. He still held his sword, which, happily for him, had turned flat under him as he fell. When he was quite erect, he suddenly flung up the sword so as to knock the pistol out of aim, dashed forward with all his weight, and, catching Ned by the throat with both hands, bore him down upon his side among the briars, and planted a knee upon his neck. Instantly shortening his sword, he held the point close above Ned's eye.
"Now," said Phil, "let that pistol fall! Let it fall, I say, or I'll run my sword into your brain. That's well. You traitor, shall I kill you now? or take you into camp and let you hang for your treason?"
Ned wriggled, but finding that Philip held him in too resolved a grasp, gave up.
"Is it you, brother Phil?" he gasped. "Why, then, you lied; you said you came from New York, about Falconer's business. I'd never have thought you'd stoop to a mean deception!"
"I think I'd better take you to hang," continued Philip. "If I kill you now, we sha'n't get the names of the other traitors."
"You wouldn't do such an unbrotherly act, Phil! I know you wouldn't. You've too good a heart. Think of your wife, my sister—"
"Ay, the traitress!"
"Then think of my father; think of the mouth that fed you—I mean the hand that fed you! You'll let me go, Phil—sure you'll let me go. Remember how we played together when we were boys. I'll give you the names of the other traitors. I'm not so much to blame: I was lured into this—lured by your wife—so help me God, I was—and you're responsible for her, you know. You ought to be the last man in the world—"
Philip's mood had changed at thought of Ned's father; the old man's pride of the name, his secret and perilous devotion to the rebel cause: he deserved better of that cause than that his son should die branded as a traitor to it; and better of Phil than that by his hand that son should be slain.