Nodding heavily, he staggered over to a bench, and crashing down thereon, sat staring in amazement at his jack boots. But having got thus far I craved some information. "Where is the Duke?" I asked. The fellow waved his hand and said: "He sits in yon great room receiving followers." "And is the chaplain with him?" "Aye, verily, why not? Our godly chaplain is the friend of kings, and nigh as full of zeal as me, John Coram. Ho! ho! methinks that’s good; ah, passing good be that. Ho! ho!" I waited till his roaring laugh had sunk into a rumble, then fired a random shot. "Did’st ever meet a man called Tubal Ammon?" John Coram tapped his steel-cap, shook his head, and answered: "Never heard that name; but say, what be he like?" "A tall, thin, bony fellow; legs like broomsticks; face like parchment; eyes like slits; and short-cropped hair that grows straight up like grass. Moreover, he----" "Stop!" broke in Coram, who had been following me with wondering eyes and gaping mouth. "What did you call him?" "Tubal Ammon." "Ah, then, it cannot be the same, and yet ’tis very like the man I met five years agone. His name was Israel Stark. ’Twas said that he had been a preacher of the Word, though when I knew him he was more a breaker of it, though, to be sure, he had some store of Latin ever ready on his tongue. Yet, for all that, he was the swiftest runner that I ever came across. Moreover, he could climb a tree like any squirrel. Aye, right well I mind me how I once did see him go clean up a----" "Stay," I put in eagerly, "’tis the same man sure enough, in spite of names." "What! hast thou met him too, then, friend?" asked Coram. "Yes, I have met him too," I answered grimly. "When?" "Not many hours ago." "And where?" "Not very far from here." John Coram rose up slowly from his seat, and so stood staring at me for a moment in a hungry fashion; then said he: "I would with all my heart it had been me instead of you, friend; for with these hands of mine I would have wrung his wicked skinny neck." "Ah, so you have a grudge against him, eh?" I asked, as carelessly as wellnigh throttling eagerness would let me. "A grudge!" growled Coram. "Aye, friend, that doth not name the tithe of it. I would account it heaven itself to kill the fellow; for, verily, there’s not a blacker villain on God’s earth than Israel Stark, and well I know it." "Ah, and how so?" "Why, hearken. He came to me in sore distress--half-starved--a thing of skin and bones. He told me tales of savages and shipwrecks. I listened to those tales, had pity on him, took him in, fed, clothed him. And in the end he robbed me vilely; moreover, would have murdered me had not a friend come in the nick of time and saved my life. That friend he slew, and so escaped." "Ah, then, we are one," said I. "What mean you?" asked John Coram wonderingly. "Hath he injured thee as well, then?" "Yes." "How?"