'Your trial is over, Captain, I hear.'
'It is over,' he sighed. 'Mr. Halliday, Sir, I hope you are satisfied.'
'I desire no revenge,' I said. 'I want safety and peace—nothing more. These blessings you and your friends denied me.'
'It is quite true, Sir. It was a most damnable plot. The only excuse for me is that I had no choice but to comply and obey, or be hanged.'
'Captain, I do not desire more of your company than is necessary. Will you tell me what you want of me?'
'The sentence is'—he made a wry face—'Pillory, Pillory, Madame. And four years' imprisonment. But the four years will pass—what I fear is Pillory.'
'I have heard of a man's friends protecting him.'
'Mine will do what they can. But, Madame, my fear is not so much on my own account as that I may be put up on the same scaffold with Mr. Merridew or Mr. Probus. There isn't a rogue in London who will not come out with something for the thief-taker. Madame, no one knows the terror in which we poor robbers live. The world envies us our lot; they think it is glorious to ride out of a moonlight night and stop the coach all alone. They don't know that the thief-taker is always behind the highwayman. He lays his hand on the largest share of the swag; he encourages lads to take the roads, and whenever he wants money he says that the time is up and then he takes the reward. My time was up.'
'I know all this—unhappily—as well as you. What do you want me to do?'
'Mr. Probus—he will prove quite as unpopular as Merridew. They thirst for his blood. There will be murder done in the pillory. Madame, for the love of God, do something for me.'