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Assembled about the table in Moultrie's library these six, with Moultrie himself presiding, listened attentively to the reasons advanced by Mr. Latimer in support of his assertion that they were being betrayed by some one within their ranks.

'Some twenty of us,' he concluded, 'lie already at the mercy of the Royal Government. Lord William is in possession of evidence upon which to hang us if the occasion serves him. That, in itself, is grave enough. But there may be worse to follow unless we take our measures to discover and remove, by whatever means you may consider fit, this traitor from our midst.'

There followed upon that a deal of talk that was little to the point. They discussed this thing; they pressed Latimer for details which he would have preferred to withhold as to the exact channel through which this information had reached him; and they were very vehement and angry in their vituperation of the unknown traitor, very full of threats of what should be done to him when found. Several talked at once, and in the general alarm and excitement the meeting degenerated for a while into a babel.