He wet his lips again, made an inarticulate sound in his throat, and finally broke out with, “The commander will nail my ears to the pillory.” “You can lock the doors after me, and know as little as you choose in the morning. No gain without some risk.” “That's so,” he agreed, and made a clutch at the gold. I swept it out of his reach. “First earn it,” I said dryly. “Look at the foot of the pillory an hour from now and you'll find it. I'll not pay you this side of the doors.” He bit his lips and studied the floor. “You're a gentleman,” he growled at last. “I suppose I can trust ye.” “I suppose you can.” Taking up his lantern he turned toward the door. “It 's growing late,” he said, with a most uncouth attempt to feign a guileless drowsiness. “I'll to bed, captain, when I've locked up. Good-night to ye!” He was gone, and the door was left unlocked. I could walk out of that gaol as I could have walked out of my house at Weyanoke. I was free, but should I take my freedom? Going back to the light of the fire I unfolded the paper and stared at it, turning its contents this way and that in my mind. The hand--but once had I seen her writing, and then it had been wrought with a shell upon firm sand. I could not judge if this were the same. Had the paper indeed come from her? Had it not? If in truth it was a message from my wife, what had befallen in a few hours since our parting? If it was a forger's lie, what trap was set, what toils were laid? I walked up and down, and tried to think it out. The strangeness of it all, the choice of a lonely and distant hut for trysting place, that pass coming from a sworn officer of the Company, certain things I had heard that day... A trap... and to walk into it with my eyes open.... An you hold me dear. As you are my knight, keep this tryst. In distress and peril.... Come what might, there was a risk I could not run. I had no weapons to assume, no preparations to make. Gathering up the gaoler's gold I started toward the door, opened it, and going out would have closed it softly behind me but that a booted leg thrust across the jamb prevented me. “I am going with you,” said Diccon in a guarded voice. “If you try to prevent me, I will rouse the house.” His head was thrown back in the old way; the old daredevil look was upon his face. “I don't know why you are going,” he declared, “but there'll be danger, anyhow.” “To the best of my belief I am walking into a trap,” I said. “Then it will shut on two instead of one,” he answered doggedly. By this he was through the door, and there was no shadow of turning on his dark, determined face. I knew my man, and wasted no more words. Long ago it had grown to seem the thing most in nature that the hour of danger should find us side by side.