“Joseph,” he said, “I want you to go now. Go speedily. Time presses; the business is very urgent. And when you come to Captain Culpeper, tell him to make all haste. It is now a little after four o’clock; at a little after eight he and his men should be at the door. Be a good lad now. Do not tarry an instant, and your old father’s fortune is made, likewise your own.” Joseph listened to the low, excited utterance of the landlord in a purely mechanical manner. He was neither uplifted nor depressed; he was neither surprised nor disappointed. He took the sealed paper once more in his hands, and stepped out without a word into the sea-broken silence of the wintry evening. A little afterwards his horse was out of the stable, and he rode away. The landlord still hobbled up and down the inn kitchen, until he heard the hoofs of the horse die away in the distance. He then sat down in his chair by the fireside for the first time for more than an hour. His head fell onto his chest. He was utterly worn out and overcome. [Illustration: CHAPTER XII _The Mariner_] Joseph once away on his errand, the landlord felt easier. He had no longer to fear his own irresolution. Things must take their course. Therefore, he sat down and waited through the weary hours, with a conviction steadily arising in his mind that after all he was playing a fine, a manly, not to say a noble, part. It calls for no little courage to sell one’s king for a few pieces of money. Gamaliel, now he came to look back upon this transaction, or at least the inception of it, felt something perilously like pleasure glow within him. He did not glory in his deed as yet; but the fact that it had cost him so many pains to achieve, invested himself in his own mind with some attributes of the heroic.