fact is,” said Lionel, watching the other’s face with a sidelong glance, “I am in a difficult position, Master Leigh.”
“I’ve been in a many,” laughed the captain, “but never yet in one through which I could not win. Strip forth your own, and haply I can do as much for you as I am wont to do for myself.”
“Why, it is this wise,” said the other. “My brother will assuredly hang as you have said if he bides him here. He is lost if they bring him to trial. And in that case, faith, I am lost too. It dishonours a man’s family to have a member of it hanged. ‘Tis a horrible thing to have happen.”
“Indeed, indeed!” the sailor agreed encouragingly.
“I would abstract him from this,” pursued Lionel, and at the same time cursed the foul fiend that prompted him such specious words to cloak his villainy. “I would abstract him from it, and yet ‘tis against my conscience that he should go unpunished for I swear to you, Master Leigh, that I abhor the deed—a cowardly, murderous deed!”
“Ah!” said the captain. And lest that grim ejaculation should check his gentleman he made haste to add—“To be sure! To be sure!”
Master Lionel stopped and faced the other squarely, his shoulders to his horse. They were quite alone in as lonely a spot as any conspirator could desire. Behind him stretched the empty beach, ahead of him the ruddy cliffs that rise gently to the wooded heights of Arwenack.
“I’ll be quite plain and open with you, Master Leigh. Peter Godolphin was my friend. Sir Oliver is no more than my half-brother. I would give a deal to the man who would abstract Sir Oliver secretly from the doom that hangs over him, and yet do the thing in such a way that Sir Oliver should not thereby escape the punishment he deserves.”
It was strange, he thought, even as he said it, that he could bring his lips so glibly to utter words that his heart detested.
The captain looked grim. He laid a finger upon Master Lionel’s velvet doublet in line with that false heart of his.
“I am your man,” said he. “But the risk is great. Yet ye say that ye’ld give a deal....”
“Yourself shall name the price,” said Lionel quickly, his eyes burning feverishly, his cheeks white.
“Oh I can contrive it, never fear,” said the captain. “I know to a nicety what you require. How say you now: if I was to carry him overseas to the plantations where they lack toilers of just such thews as his?” He lowered his voice and spoke with some slight hesitation, fearing that he proposed perhaps more than his prospective employer might desire.
“He might return,” was the answer that dispelled all doubts on that score.
“Ah!” said the skipper. “What o’ the Barbary rovers, then! They lack slaves and are ever ready to trade, though they be niggardly payers. I never heard of none that returned once they had him safe aboard their galleys. I ha’ done some trading with them, bartering human freights for spices and eastern carpets and the like.”
Master Lionel breathed hard. “‘Tis a horrible fate, is’t not?”
The captain stroked his beard. “Yet ‘tis the only really safe bestowal, and when all is said ‘tis not so horrible as hanging, and certainly less dishonouring to a man’s kin. Ye’ld be serving Sir Oliver and yourself.”
“‘Tis so, tis so,” cried Master Lionel almost fiercely. “And the price?”
The seaman shifted on his short, sturdy legs, and his face grew pensive. “A hundred pound?” he suggested tentatively.
“Done with you for a hundred pounds,” was the prompt answer—so prompt that Captain Leigh realized he had driven a fool’s bargain which it was incumbent upon him to amend.
“That is, a hundred pound for myself,” he corrected slowly. “Then there be the crew to reckon for—to keep their counsel and lend a hand; ‘twill mean another hundred at the least.”
Master Lionel considered a moment. “It is more than I can lay my hands on at short notice. But, look you, you shall have a hundred and fifty pounds in coin and the balance in jewels. You shall not be the loser in that, I promise you. And when you come again, and bring me word that all is done as you now undertake there shall be the like again.”
Upon that the bargain was settled. And when Lionel came to talk of ways and means he found that he had allied himself to a man who understood his business thoroughly. All the assistance that the skipper asked was that Master Lionel should lure his gentleman to some concerted spot conveniently near the waterside. There Leigh would have a boat and his men in readiness, and the rest might very safely be left to him.
In a flash Lionel bethought him of the proper place for this. He swung round, and pointed across the water to Trefusis Point and the grey pile of Godolphin Court all bathed in sunshine now.
“Yonder, at Trefusis Point in the shadow of Godolphin Court at eight to-morrow night, when there will be no moon. I’ll see that he is there. But on your life do not miss him.”
“Trust me,” said Master Leigh. “And the money?”
“When you have him safely aboard come to me at Penarrow,” he replied, which showed that after all he did not trust Master Leigh any further than he was compelled.
The captain was quite satisfied. For should his gentleman fail to disburse he could always return Sir Oliver to shore.
On that they parted. Lionel mounted and rode away, whilst Master Leigh made a trumpet of his hands and hallooed to the ship.
As he stood waiting for the boat that came off to fetch him, a smile slowly overspread the adventurer’s rugged face. Had Master Lionel seen it he might have asked himself how far it was safe to drive such bargains with a rogue who kept faith only in so far as it was profitable. And in this matter Master Leigh saw a way to break faith with profit. He had no conscience, but he loved as all rogues love to turn the tables upon a superior rogue. He would play Master Lionel most finely, most poetically false; and he found a deal to chuckle over in the contemplation of it.
Chapter VII.
Trepanned
Master Lionel was absent most of the following day from Penarrow, upon a pretext of making certain purchases in Truro. It would be half-past seven when he returned; and as he entered he met Sir Oliver in the hall.
“I have a message for you from Godolphin Court,” he announced, and saw his brother stiffen and his face change colour. “A boy met me at the gates and bade me tell you that Mistress Rosamund desires a word with you forthwith.”
Sir Oliver’s heart almost stopped, then went off at a gallop. She asked for him! She had softened perhaps from her yesterday’s relentlessness. She would consent at last to see him!
“Be thou blessed for these good tidings!” he answered on a note of high excitement. “I go at once.” And on the instant he departed. Such was his eagerness, indeed, that under the hot spur of it he did not even stay to fetch that parchment which was to be his unanswerable advocate. The omission was momentous.
Master Lionel said no word as his brother swept out. He shrank back a little into the shadows. He was white to the lips and felt as he would stifle. As the door closed he moved suddenly. He sprang to follow Sir Oliver. Conscience cried out to him that he could not do this thing. But Fear was swift to answer that outcry. Unless he permitted what was planned to take its course, his life might pay the penalty.
He turned, and lurched into the dining-room upon legs that trembled.
He found the table set for supper as on that other night when he had staggered in with a wound in his side to be cared for and sheltered by Sir Oliver. He did not approach the table; he crossed to