“Ay—and so I am. Though I must lose my office of Vice-Admiral, which has cost me six hundred pounds, if I suffer you to escape, I’d never hesitate if it were not for Manourie, who watches me as closely as he watches you, and would baulk us at the last. And that is why I have held my peace on the score of this warrant. What can it help that I should trouble you with the matter until at the same time I can offer you some way out?” “The Frenchman has a throat, and throats can be slit,” said the downright King. “So they can; and men can be hanged for slitting them,” returned Sir Lewis, and thereafter resumed and elaborated his first argument, using now such forceful logic and obvious sincerity that Sir Walter was convinced. He was no less convinced, too, of the peril in which he stood. He plied those wits of his, which had rarely failed him in an extremity. Manourie was the difficulty. But in his time he had known many of these agents who, without sentimental interest and purely for the sake of gold, were ready to play such parts; and never yet had he known one who was not to be corrupted. So that evening he desired Manourie’s company in the room above stairs that had been set apart for Sir Walter’s use. Facing him across the table at which both were seated, Sir Walter thrust his clenched fist upon the board, and, suddenly opening it, dazzled the Frenchman’s beady eyes with the jewel sparkling in his palm. “Tell me, Manourie, are you paid as much as that to betray me?” Manourie paled a little under his tan. He was a swarthy, sharp-featured fellow, slight and wiry. He looked into Sir Walter’s grimly smiling eyes, then again at the white diamond, from which the candlelight was striking every colour of the rainbow. He made a shrewd estimate of its price, and shook his black head. He had quite recovered from the shock of Sir Walter’s question. “Not half as much,” he confessed, with impudence. “Then you might find it more remunerative to serve me,” said the knight. “This jewel is to be earned.” The agent’s eyes flickered; he passed his tongue over his lips. “As how?” quoth he. “Briefly thus: I have but learnt of the trammel in which I am taken. I must have time to concert my measures of escape, and time is almost at an end. You are skilled in drugs, so my kinsman tells me. Can you so drug me as to deceive physicians that I am in extremis?” Manourie considered awhile. “I... I think I could,” he answered presently. “And keep faith with me in this, at the price of, say.. two such stones?” The venal knave gasped in amazement. This was not generosity; it was prodigality. He recovered again, and swore himself Sir Walter’s. “About it, then.” Sir Walter rolled the gem across the board into the clutch of the spy, which pounced to meet it. “Keep that in earnest. The other will follow when we have cozened them.”