"Truly it is not very great," I answered. "Why have you reloaded?" "Because necessity is best served by readiness, good friend." "You are not coming down, then?" "Nay, I have considered it most carefully. I am not coming down." "What, then?" "Well, friend, it doth appear to me that we are quits. You have no pistol, and therefore cannot come against me; nor can you even leave that tree with safety. By the same token I am swordless, and therefore ’twould be a matter of exceeding risk for me to descend; for if I fired and missed, what then? Thus, you are there, and I am here." "Yes, and you would kill me if you could for all your priceless conscience." "Nay, put it not thus harshly, friend. Say, rather, that I must be free at all cost." "Which goes to prove a guilty conscience." "No, a ready wit. But let us not waste words. _Verbum sat sapienti_. Truly my Latin needs a little furbishing; still, ’twill serve. Look you, friend, I offer thee a clean, straight bargain. Go thy way and let me go mine." "The time has gone for bargaining," I answered sternly. "I will stay here till help arrives. ’Twill not be long, I fancy." On hearing that his thin lips parted in a grin which showed two rows of firm-set teeth and made his face a picture of maliciousness. "Ah, say you so?" he hissed. "Then I am ready. _In omnia paratus_. And yet again, _eventus stultorum magister_." With that he disappeared from view, the branches shook, and in a flash I knew that he was bent on swift pursuit and murder. But scarcely had he moved when a cry rang out behind me, and turning round, I saw my father speeding round the wood-end, twenty yards off, with a pistol in his hand. "Have a care! Come not too close!" I shouted, pointing to the tree. "He is up there, with a pistol!" "Who?" "The man we want." "He is fairly caught, then," quoth my father grimly, as he stopped and cocked his pistol. "Be not too sure of that," I answered. Even as I spoke, there came a great commotion from the tree, as of one struggling desperately; and then a frantic, gurgling cry broke out: "Help! caught by neck! Strangling. Help!" "’Twould seem as though swift justice had him," said my father. "Come, let us see," he added, moving forward. "Nay, have a care," said I. "I trust him not. He is as crafty as Old Nick. To go beneath the tree might mean a well-aimed bullet." "Nathless, we cannot see the villain hang. What’s to be done? Is he high up, think you?" "Yes, near the top; or so at least he was." "Ah, then, I have it. We must get a ladder. There is that long one hanging on the garden wall. The very thing. Come, Michael, let us fetch it. Hark! he is surely strangling," he added, as the cries grew still more guttural and frantic. "Come, quickly!"