Here was the _impasse_ again, with no way to circumvent it, that I could see. What was I to do? With the long Scots’ rapier for a walking-staff I began to pace the floor, cudgeling my brain to think of some expedient that would secure our safety, Champe’s and mine, without sinking one or both of us to the level of remorseless assassins. I had not dreamed it would be so hard. Thumbing it over with Champe, the one desirable thing seemed to be to get hold of this scoundrel before he could leak the news that would efface us. But now he was secured, the whole thing was to know what to do with him. Askew never moved a muscle as I strode back and forth behind his chair. He sat perfectly still, staring into the blackened fireplace as if its soot-covered interior had fascinated him. A dozen times I passed him, and at each facing about he seemed to be staring the harder, with the thin fingers more tightly interlocked over the suspended knee. Then-- I do not know how it came about, or why I spun on my heel and threw the rapier up to guard my head. It was not for any warning either to eye or ear that he gave me, certainly. But when I wheeled, the heavy trooper’s sword was flashing in the air and my instinctive parry served only to break the force of the blow--to turn it flat-bladed when it was meant to be a cleaver-cut such as a butcher would aim at the meat on his block. Then the half-lighted dusk of the long room burst into a thousand scintillating stars, and I knew no more until I came back to life with John Champe kneeling beside me and sopping my head with icy water from the hand-basin. “The man--Askew?” I gasped, when I could find the words. “Is he gone?” “I don’t see him anywhere,” said the sergeant, making believe to peer into the gathering shadows. Then he chuckled. “So it was Askew who gave you this goose-egg on your skull, was it? But rest you easy, Captain Dick; he has had time to swim the Hudson corner-wise before this. The blood was dried in your hair when I found you lying here--and that was a good quarter-hour ago.” I sat up on the floor, and the stars began to twinkle again. “Help me,” I muttered. “We must get out of this--now--this minute! That double-faced fiend will be back again, with a file of soldiers at his heels. Stir yourself, man, for heaven’s sake! I tell you he knows us both--_and knows us for what we really are_!” XIV A CASK OF BITTERS EXPECTING nothing less than the spy’s return at the head of an arresting party, we lost no time getting out of the tavern, Champe going first, and I following when he gave the prearranged signal that the coast was clear.