"Here's one of the thieves, Sir Rowland!" cried the attendant. "I was only just in time. The young rascal had learnt from some of the women-servants that Lady Trafford was from home, and was in the very act of making off when I got down stairs. Come along, my Newgate bird!" he continued, shaking him with great violence. Jonathan gave utterance to a low whistle. "If things had gone smoothly," he thought, "I should have cursed the fellow's stupidity. As it is, I'm not sorry for the blunder." Trenchard, meanwhile, whose gaze was fixed upon the boy, became livid as death, but he moved not a muscle. "'T is he!" he mentally ejaculated. "What do you think of your nephew, Sir Rowland?" whispered Jonathan, who sat with his back towards Thames, so that his features were concealed from the youth's view. "It would be a thousand pities, wouldn't it, to put so promising a lad out of the way?" "Devil!" exclaimed the knight fiercely, "Give me the paper." Jonathan hastily picked up the pen, and presented it to Trenchard, who attached his signature to the document. "If I _am_ the devil," observed Wild, "as some folks assert, and I myself am not unwilling to believe, you'll find that I differ from the generally-received notions of the arch-fiend, and faithfully execute the commands of those who confide their souls to my custody." "Take hence this boy, then," rejoined Trenchard; "his looks unman me." "Of what am I accused?" asked Thames, who though a good deal alarmed at first, had now regained his courage. "Of robbery!" replied Jonathan in a thundering voice, and suddenly confronting him. "You've charged with assisting your comrade, Jack Sheppard, to purloin certain articles of value from a jewel-case belonging to Lady Trafford. Aha!" he continued, producing a short silver staff, which he carried constantly about with him, and uttering a terrible imprecation, "I see you're confounded. Down on your marrow-bones, sirrah! Confess your guilt, and Sir Rowland may yet save you from the gallows." "I've nothing to confess," replied Thames, boldly; "I've done no wrong. Are _you_ my accuser?" "I am," replied Wild; "have you anything to allege to the contrary?" "Only this," returned Thames: "that the charge is false, and malicious, and that _you_ know it to be so." "Is that all!" retorted Jonathan. "Come, I must search you my youngster!" "You shan't touch me," rejoined Thames; and, suddenly bursting from Charcam, he threw himself at the feet of Trenchard. "Hear me, Sir Rowland!" he cried. "I am innocent, f have stolen nothing. This person--this Jonathan Wild, whom I beheld for the first time, scarcely an hour ago, in Wych Street, is--I know not why--my enemy. He has sworn that he'll take away my life!" "Bah!" interrupted Jonathan. "You won't listen to this nonsense, Sir Rowland!" "If you _are_ innocent, boy," said the knight, controlling his emotion; "you have nothing to apprehend. But, what brought you here?"