"For God's love, Your Most Gracious and Royal Majesty, I am held prisoner by Sir Hugh Richmond, who threatens me with instant death should his wife suffer any mistreatment at Your Majesty's hands. I have served you well, Sire; leave me not now defenceless in mine enemy's hand. Sir Hugh is desperate; he will kill me. I fear me for my life. Your most faithful humble servant." He wrote it all down at my dictation. "Hast finished?" I asked. He nodded his head. "Sign it." He scrawled beneath it, "Jeffreys, Lord Chief Justice of England." "Seal it," said I. His hands trembled so he could scarcely drop the wax, his mouth was so dry it was difficult to moisten the seal, but he managed somehow or other. "You never wrote truer words in your life," I said, taking the paper, and the seal as well, and examining both of them carefully, keeping him well covered the while, to see that he had played me no tricks in his writing. "What next?" he asked. "Go into yonder room." I pointed to the bedchamber. "I have done what you asked, you would not murder me now? The laws of war require that a hostage be kindly entreated and..." "I intend to lock you there until I have seen the King. Go!" Seeing no help for it, he rose to his feet and entered the room, followed by me and Macleod. Jeffreys continued to protest, but I silenced him with that wonderfully bright persuader in my hand. "Now that I have the letter," said I, "I care little whether you are alive or dead, and, for the toss of a coin, I would rid the world of you. But I am not a judge; being only a poor soldier, I'll keep faith with you. Your life depends entirely upon your absolute obedience; I must bind you securely." He said no more, but suffered himself to be bound without resistance. Macleod had brought plenty of rope; we lashed him until he was as immobile as an iron bar; then we picked him up and laid him on the bed and, with what remained of the rope, secured him so that he could not move about or roll off to the floor. "You will be enlarged, doubtless, in the morning," said I. "I wish some of Monmouth's friends and followers whom you hounded to death could see you now." "For God's sake," he gasped, "if you must leave me this way, give me a draught of wine!" "Nay," I replied smilingly. "Here is something that will suit your thirst and dry humour much better." I crammed into his huge mouth, which he had opened gaspingly to protest, a soiled towel which I took from the wash-stand. I rammed it in hard and, with a piece torn from the sheet, I bound it down around his head and neck. I thought my lord's veins would burst in his forehead, he grew so purple. "A pleasant night to you," said I. "And may the love of your King secure your release in the morning." We extinguished the candles, went out into the large room, and closed the door. In a voice that Jeffreys within could easily hear, I said to my man: