The landlord hurriedly bore away the ladder and went indoors with his man, lest the lady above should fling back the shutters and discover in what manner she had been spied upon. For it was plain that Jackson had had the folly to let her see his face at the window. Having abused his servant in the roundest terms for his incaution, the landlord proceeded to question him as to what he had seen. “Was it the King?” was the breathless question. “Oh, no, master!” the fellow assured him. So much for the slender hope the landlord had been secretly cherishing! He could not confess to any surprise, for many circumstances pointed against it. And as there was no sort of hesitation about the fellow, Gamaliel had no temptation to doubt him. Yet if it were not Charles Stuart, Jackson’s demeanour at the window clearly showed that he and the persons in the chamber were well acquainted. “Then if it was not Charles Stuart,” the landlord demanded, “who was it, sirrah?” “I do not know,” said Will Jackson. “You are lying to me,” said the landlord, furiously; “and if you lie to me, you rogue, I will break your head--or no, I will not; I will send for those soldiers that were here two nights agone, and I will deliver you up to them as a malignant who was concerned in Worcester fight. Now, who are they? D’ye hear me? Who are they, I say?” “I do not know, master,” Will Jackson repeated doggedly. “I say ye do know, sir!” the landlord cried. “And ye shall speak the truth, d’ye hear me! Why should you come down the ladder in that plight if ye had never seen these persons before?” The fellow stood silent. The landlord repeated the question and heightened the threat. But it was of no avail. The drawer abided by his denial, simply and tenaciously. His master fell into a violent rage. He shook him by the collar, he kicked him, he beat him with his fists; but all he could get out of him was the same unwavering, stolid answer. And at last, Gamaliel’s anger having spent itself somewhat and his disappointment having grown a little less keen, he grew to believe the unfortunate Jackson. There was that in his humble, thick-witted rusticity that in itself killed suspicion. After all, it was not unlikely that the nervousness begotten by his strange employment, and his horror at being discovered in it, was the true cause of his wild appearance and behaviour. As the landlord sat that evening, as usual, by his cheerful fire, examining the knowledge he had lately gained, and weighing it in his mind for what it was worth, he felt that he had no cause to be dissatisfied. The man and the woman upstairs in his best taffety chamber fronting the sea were certainly Royalists. And one of them, and he the man, was stricken and helpless; and were there not diamonds on the fair hands of them both? [Illustration: CHAPTER VI _The night: the Sea: the Rocks:_]