had gone, and Morgan and Jeffreys were left gagged and
bound. The Jesuit was furious. His first impulse was to kill his
captives and leave their bodies to be found by their companions, who
would assuredly make some search for them. But a moment's reflection
made him abandon that plan. Had he desired only their death, it would
have been easier for the Indians to shoot them than to capture them.
One of the two, Morgan, was an old foe; he had done much to thwart the
scheme for firing the Forest of Dean, a scheme which would have brought
Basil nothing less than a bishopric had it succeeded. He was one of
those who had slain Father Jerome, and must expiate his many offences.
The angry man had little objection to letting out Master Timothy's life
at a blow, but Morgan must have no such easy ending. So he left the
two, half-stifled in their blankets, and went into the woods and along
the creek, calling in the hope of attracting some stray Indians. After
a while, the chief and about a dozen others straggled back.

The tent, wherein Basil had kept up state in order to overawe the
simple natives, was packed away into a canoe. The prisoners were put
into another, and the company paddled away towards the interior,
following by water the course the Spaniards had taken by land.

The two parties met that evening at a native village, and a fierce
quarrel broke out betwixt Basil and the Spanish commandant. The
civilian accused the soldier of cowardice and indifference that
amounted to treachery, and fiercely maintained that a little more
wisdom and courage on the part of the troops would have sufficed for
the capture of the whole expedition. The captain retorted that he had
done his duty with due zeal and discretion, and threatened Basil with a
share of the bonds that bound the limbs of his fellow Englishmen. He
took Basil's two prisoners and added them to his own captures,
asserting that he did so in order to ensure their safe keeping. By
easy stages the troops moved west by north along the rivers and over
the mountains to Panama, where the Englishmen were formally imprisoned
as pirates and wicked enemies of his Majesty King Philip. Basil was
soon busily at work in an endeavour to get them accused of heresy
rather than piracy, and so put them into the hands of the Inquisition;
for the ecclesiastics punished with infinitely greater cruelties than
did the King's officers.

A long and anxious council was held that afternoo