Curse the fellow, there were his cries again! What must it be like to have a bullet dug, inch by inch, by a dagger out of one’s own back! Ugh! what a morbid old fool he was; why must he forever keep thinking of it, and receiving the steel in his own pampered flesh? Might it not be there in earnest if he ever went up a ladder again! After all, however, when he came to think of the thing in its true relation, he was by no means sorry he had been there. He had acquired knowledge of some value. The “incurable disease” was neither more nor less than a bullet wound in the body. Now, why should the woman lie about it and conceal it from the world if the man, her husband, had come by it honestly? Had he been on the side of the just, in other words on that of the party in power, more explicitly, my Lord Cromwell and his Parliament, that wound would have been an honourable scar. They were plainly Royalists; persons of mark, no doubt, for were there not a thousand and one subtle but unmistakable evidences of their condition? And, just as plainly, were they not fleeing the country? Otherwise they would not come at dead of night to the “Sea Rover.” He was afraid he must dismiss the theory of this young man being the King from his mind. It was almost certain that had Charles Stuart been wounded to death, the fact would have been known over the length and breadth of the land. For him to have escaped so far in that dire condition would have been impossible. Again, there was evidence in their familiar talk, despite something of a disparity in years, the woman being clearly older than her companion, that they were man and wife. In any case, the woman’s mode of address, tender and solicitous as it was, was hardly the one she would employ, even if she were a princess of the blood, to the King’s majesty. No; he was afraid he must look elsewhere for the King. Yet he had no need to be cast down upon the matter. These two persons were not to be despised. Their appearance suggested money and jewels. And they seemed to be delivered, bound hand and foot as it were, into his hands. Gamaliel hugged himself at that thought. They should be made to pay a price for that cold in his head. They should not aggravate his gout and his rheumatism, and set his nerves in a twitter, for nothing. He smiled malevolently as he sipped his hot cup, and spread his hands out to the fire.