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'Why not, since they've let you go...?'

'Aye, aye, but they may find out something about me yet, and if they take me up again...' He broke off, distress on his dull face.

'What, then?'

Williams answered for him. 'They may tar-and-feather him,' he said casually.

His lordship made a sharp gesture of abhorrence.

'Why? Because he's a King's man? That's a bugbear. Why don't they tar-and-feather me?'

There was a half-smile on the lean face of the false Dick Williams.

'Your lordship is a great man, protected by your station. We are small fry, whom no one would miss. We play this game with our lives on the board, and if we're put to death'—he shrugged and laughed—'no more notice will be taken of it.'

'Nay, there you are wrong. I should see them punished.'

'That would vindicate your authority, but hardly profit us.'

'They daren't do it. They daren't!' Lord William was emphatic.

'They'll do it to Kirkland, if they get him. And they want him, eh, Cheney?'

'Aye, it's a fact,' said Cheney. 'The committee made no secret of it. They'll put Kirkland to death if they lay hands on him, and any other spy.'