andages about my head. Those present before were there still, save M.
de Perrencourt, whose place at the table was vacant; the large sheet of
paper and the materials for writing had vanished. There was a fresh
group at the end, next to Arlington; here now sat the Dukes of Monmouth
and Buckingham, carrying on a low conversation with the Secretary. The
King lay back in his chair, frowning and regarding with severe gaze a
man who stood opposite to him, almost where I had been when I drank of
the King's cup. There stood Darrell and the lieutenant of the Guards who
had arrested me, and between them, with clothes torn and muddy, face
scratched and stained with blood, with panting breath and gleaming eyes,
firmly held by either arm, was Phineas Tate the Ranter. They had sent
and caught him then, while I lay unconscious. But what led them to
suspect him?

There was the voice of a man speaking from the other side of this party
of three. I could not see him, for their bodies came between, but I
recognised the tones of Robert, Darrell's servant. It was he, then, who
had put them on Jonah's track, and, in following that, they must have
come on Phineas.

"We found the two together," he was saying, "this man and Mr Dale's
servant who had brought the wine from the town. Both were armed with
pistols and daggers, and seemed ready to meet an attack. In the alley in
front of the house that I have named----"

"Yes, yes, enough of the house," interrupted the King impatiently.

"In the alley there were two horses ready. We attacked the men at once,
the lieutenant and I making for this one here, the two with us striving
to secure Jonah Wall. This man struggled desperately, but seemed
ignorant of how to handle his weapons. Yet he gave us trouble enough,
and we had to use him roughly. At last we had him, but then we found
that Jonah, who fought like a wild cat, had wounded both the soldiers
with his knife, and, although himself wounded, had escaped by the
stairs. Leaving this man with the lieutenant, I rushed down after him,
but one of the horses was gone, and I heard no sound of hoofs. He had
got a start of us, and is well out of Dover by now."

I was straining all my attention to listen, yet my eyes fixed themselves
on Phineas, whose head was thrown back defiantly. Suddenly a voice came
from behind my chair.

"That man must be pursued," said M. de Perrencourt. "Who knows that
there may not be accomplices in this devilish plot? This man