k the paper that he handed me and read:

"In two hours' time be at Canonsgate. The gate will be open. Two serving
men will be there with two horses. A lady will be conducted to the gate
and delivered into your charge. You will ride with her as speedily as
possible to Deal. You will call her your sister, if need arise to speak
of her. Go to the hostelry of the Merry Mariners in Deal, and there
await a gentleman, who will come in the morning and hand you fifty
guineas in gold. Deliver the lady to this gentleman, return immediately
to London, and lie in safe hiding till word reaches you from me."

I read and turned to him in amazement.

"Well," he asked, "isn't it plain enough?"

"The lady I can guess," I answered, "but I pray your Grace to tell me
who is the gentleman."

"What need is there for you to know? Do you think that more than one
will seek you at the Merry Mariners Tavern and pray your acceptance of
fifty guineas?"

"But I should like to know who this one is."

"You'll know when you see him."

"With respect to your Grace, this is not enough to tell me."

"You can't be told more, sir."

"Then I won't go."

He frowned and beat his gloves on his thigh impatiently.

"A gentleman, your Grace," said I, "must be trusted, or he cannot
serve."

He looked round the little cell and asked significantly,

"Is your state such as to entitle you to make conditions?"

"Only if your Grace has need of services which I can give or refuse," I
answered, bowing.

His irritation suddenly vanished, or seemed to vanish. He leant back in
his chair and laughed.

"Yet all the time," said he, "you've guessed the gentleman! Isn't it so?
Come, Mr Dale, we understand one another. This service, if all goes
well, is simple. But if you're interrupted in leaving the Castle, you
must use your sword. Well, if you use your sword and don't prove
victorious, you may be taken. If you're taken it will be best for us all
that you shouldn't know the name of this gentleman, and best for him and
for me that I should not have mentioned it."

The little doubt I had harboured was gone. Buckingham and Monmouth were
hand in hand. Buckingham's object was political, Monmouth was to find
his reward in the prize that I was to rescue from the clutches of M. de
Perrencourt and hand over to him at the hostelry in Deal. If success
attended the attempt, I was to disappear; if it failed, my name and I
were to be the shield and bear the brunt. The rewar