"And you will spare him if he does?" I asked. It seemed to me neither justice nor mercy.
"No," he said, "there is no fear of that. Those who go with ropes round their necks know no mercy. But drowning men will catch at straws; and ten to one he will babble!"
I shivered. "It is a bad business," I said.
He thought I referred to the conspiracy, and he inveighed bitterly against it, reproaching himself for bringing me into it, and for his folly in believing the rosy accounts of men who had all to win, and nothing save their worthless lives to lose. "There is only one thing gained," he said. "We are likely to pay dearly for that, so we may think the more of it. We have been the means of punishing a villain."
"Yes," I said, "that is true. It was a strange meeting and a strange recognition. Strangest of all that I should be called up to swear with him."
"Not strange," Master Bertie answered gravely. "I would rather call it providential. Let us think of that, and be of better courage, friend. We have been used; we shall not be cast away before our time."
I looked back. For some minutes I had thought I heard behind us a light footstep, more like the pattering of a dog than anything else. I could see nothing, but that was not wonderful, for the moon was young and the sky overcast. "Do you hear some one following us?" I said.
Master Bertie drew rein suddenly, and turning in the saddle we listened. For a second I thought I still heard the sound. The next it ceased, and only the wind toying with the November leaves and sighing away in the distance, came to our ears. "No," he said, "I think it must have been your fancy. I hear nothing."
But when we rode on the sound began again, though at first more faintly, as if our follower had learned prudence and fallen farther behind. "Do not stop, but listen!" I said softly. "Cannot you hear the pattering of a naked foot now?"
"I hear something," he answered. "I am afraid you are right, and that we are followed."