Such an escape as that makes a man sober. I continued along the road, thinking of many things; above all, of how it might have ended. By what a slender thread and how tenaciously we cling to life! Yesterday, when my sorrow first fell upon me with its full weight, there was nothing terrible about the face of death; but to-night, with his grim features close before me, I felt that heedless courage which even the most miserable always feel, though they would thank God for cowardice. With this thought came another: How Ruth must have felt! She had crossed the gulf that I had fought to draw back from. Not till then did my thoughts return to the work in hand—the paper and the dwarf’s errand. Almost immediately I heard the clatter of horse hoofs breaking the silence behind me. In a moment Louis Van Ramm dashed by me at full gallop, raising a cloud of dust as he rode, and sending a flaw of wind into the roadside bushes where I had concealed myself at the first sound of his approach. “So you will trap the Earl, will you?” thought I. “Do not reckon without me, Louis Van Ramm.” Then I set out running, and was soon at the fort. It had been scarce six years since William Bradford had come from Philadelphia to set up his printing press in New York. As I passed the mouth of the street where Bradford lived I could hear Louis kicking and pounding at the printer’s door, for what reason beyond his master’s hest I was soon to learn. At the fort I found some difficulty in gaining access to the Earl; but, by means of the password which he had communicated to me, and a little threat and bluster on my own account, I was soon inside the walls. The Earl heard my fragmentary tale with interest. “I can easily imagine what has been communicated to him,” said Bellamont. “But what Bradford has to do with it is beyond my penetration.” He rang a bell upon the table. A man-at-arms appeared, whom he bade summon the captain of the guard. “Take a squad of men,” commanded the Earl as soon as the man had appeared for duty. “Take a squad of men and arrest William Bradford and anyone else whom you may find at his shop. At once. To your duty.” The Earl at a pinch, as Lady Marmaduke had said, was no man to bandy words, though, to be sure, he said to me as soon as the soldiers had set out that he wished I had got my information in any other way than spying. I did not remind him that he had set me to watch, or that there was no other way on earth by which I could have followed his instructions, for I knew that if I said anything his conscience would suggest some kind of harmless watchfulness from a distance. “Your Excellency’s welfare is always above my own,” I said humbly, though I shared none of his scruples. “Ay, doubtless,” he answered musingly. “Well, let us see how it turns out.”