"They will not prevail at this bout," said the old man. "At Fowey, they tell me, the Earl has but six days' provisions and is planning to slip away by sea. Between this and the coast the soldiers have eaten all bare; in a day or two they must break through or surrender, and I think, gentlemen, I can promise that you will be soon enlarged." "You speak with assurance, Sir," said I, handing him a crust and filling a pannikin for him from our common pail of water. "And yet," said he, with a faint smile, "I am no combatant: no, nor even a spy--though to-morrow morning they are to hang me for one." He spoke the words quietly and fell to munching his crust. The three of us--and the troopers too--stared at him amazed: and for explanation, his jaws being occupied, he pointed a thin finger at the ladder and rope. "But surely," I began, "since you are no spy, someone can speak for you----" "Lord, Sirs!" he took me up; "what does it matter? I had yet left to me a small estate in St. Teath parish, which they have twice pillaged. My son they slew on outpost duty, before the first Braddock fight." He turned to me again. "What says the Mohun motto, Sir? _Generis revocamus honores_, is it not? Well, there is no chance of that for the Carminowes. Let the Mohuns paint up their ancestral hand clutching the Pope's golden flower: I have held a fairer in mine, and seen it wither. I have lived through the bitterness of death; I have seen the end of things. The last Carminowe goes down the blind way of fate--goes out in obloquy to-morrow, hanged for a spy by mistake. I have finished my quarrel with the gods: they are strong, and I make no complaint that they choose to wind up with a jest. I do assure you, Sirs, that I neither fear death nor disdain any way of it." But here Jack Trecarrel, that had been staring gloomily at the wall opposite, suddenly rubbed his eyes and sat up with a laugh. "By the Lord, Master Carminowe! and if that be how you take it, you may yet turn the jest against the gods." We stared at him all, trying to read his meaning. "Nay," he went on, "I have a slow wit, and you must give me time. The notion in my head may be worth much or little. Only you must tell me, Master Carminowe, on what ground you promised us that our liberty was nigh at hand: for something will depend on that."