Dizzy and bewildered with what she had just witnessed, she staggered to her feet, clinging for support as she did so to the parapet. Her eyes, as she passed her hand across them to clear the mists that blinded them, caught a dim confused gleam of the object which had attracted the attention of the party. Within barely a dozen paces of where she stood, it lay; half way between the barge and the landing stage, forking and zig-zagging just under the sluggish movement of the water. [Sidenote: The flash of the missing weapon.] A sharp-pointed cruel-looking blade of some description; but though Ruth, thanks to Master Lockit's instructions, could tell you a dagger from a sword, and a rapier from either, a vast deal better than some folks could, she was not able to give a name to this three-edged knife, with its short dagger-shaped hilt of wood that stuck up slantwise high and dry out of the water, among the white rush stamens. One like that she had never seen. No great marvel, however, if she had not, for the pattern was of quite recent French devising, and hardly likely so soon to have found its way into a peaceful little Hertfordshire hamlet, in the ordinary course of events; but Ruth, as she bent over the water's edge with eyes fixed on the thing, felt sure that something extraordinary was going on about and around her. Something too fearful to guess at. Never a doubt that this sword or spear, or whatever might be its hateful name, was the thing which the man Rumsey had let slip from his bundle on leaving the barge. That like one viper of its poisonous brood, the thing was but one of more of its kind, was equally clear. But come what might, thought Ruth, its own special and individual chances of fulfilling the fearful end it was fashioned for, should not be left it; and stealing down by the parapet, and along by the water's edge till she reached the spot, she knelt and stretched forward her hand, grown cold as death, but steady and straight to its purpose; and seizing the hilt of the weapon, dragged it, dripping with the diamond bright drops from the water, under her cloak. [Sidenote: Ruth strangely armed.] Then casting one keen glance round, and upwards towards the inn, she sped along the bank, never stopping till she reached the postern. CHAPTER VII. MISTRESS SHEPPARD DOES NOT CARE FOR HER GUESTS. Mistress Sheppard was almost as perfect a specimen of a landlady, as her establishment was a model of an inn; for who has not heard of that famous King's Arms, within whose snug shelter Master Isaak Walton loved to rest and sup, with a friendly gossip after his day's angling in the waters of the "Silver Lea," which almost washed the ancient hostelry's walls? [Sidenote: The landlady of the inn.]