Oldesworth leaned a little forward with his fist upon the table. “I have been waiting all my manhood to take satisfaction from Alan Gwyeth,” he said slowly. “Now the opportunity is given me do you think I shall suffer a boy’s obstinacy to hinder me? I will have that message. If you’ll not yield it for the asking, why—Come, come, speak. I’d be loath to hurt you, Hugh.” “I’d be loath to have you, sir,” Hugh replied soberly, though his whole inclination was to laugh; for now the worst had come he was braced to meet it, and quite unafraid. Captain Oldesworth’s jaws were set ominously at that. “Corporal,” he ordered sharply, “send a man to fetch rope and a piece of match.” With an involuntary start Hugh came to his feet, for his mind had jumped back to something Butler had once hinted,—that a length of burning match tied between the fingers was the surest way to make a dumb knave find his tongue. “’Tis no laughing matter, you’ll perceive,” the captain said, with a trace of satisfaction. “Now you’ll tell?” Hugh shook his head, not looking at his uncle but with eyes upon the door. He saw it pushed open, and then came in the trooper with a length of rope in his hand, but Hugh scarcely heeded, for behind him, with an eager step, walked Peregrine Oldesworth. After that it did not need the tramp of the men crossing from the other end of the room to set every fibre of Hugh’s body tense for the coming struggle. With a quick movement he swung about to catch up the stool he had just quitted; Oldesworth must have stepped round the table behind him, for he blocked his way now, and catching him by the shoulders made him stand, for all Hugh’s effort to wrench clear. “’Twill be no use fighting, my lad,” he said, with something oddly like pity in his face. “Do as I ask straightway. You’ve done all a gentleman need do. Tell me now when Pleydall is coming. Else you go into the hands of Cornet Oldesworth and his squad here. And Peregrine is keen for this work. But tell, and no one shall lay hand on you, nor—” “I care not if you kill me!” Hugh cried hoarsely. “Have it your way, then!” Oldesworth retorted, and, flinging him off, turned his back. “Tie him up, lads,” he ordered.