secretary had stated, and King agreed with De
Chesne's implied opinion that it was Sir Lewis himself who held the
warrant.

They sent for him at once, and Ralegh straightly taxed him with it. Sir
Lewis as straightly admitted it, and when King thereupon charged him
with deceit he showed no anger, but only the profoundest grief. He sank
into a chair, and took his head in his hands.

"What could I do? What could I do?" he cried. "The warrant came in the
very moment we were setting out. At first I thought of telling you; and
then I bethought me that to do so would be but to trouble your mind,
without being able to offer you help."

Sir Walter understood what was implied. "Did you not say," he asked,
"that you were my kinsman first and Vice-Admiral of Devon after?"

"Ay--and so I am. Though I must lose my office of Vice-Admiral, which
has cost me six hundred pounds, if I suffer you to escape, I'd never
hesitate if it were not for Manourie, who watches me as closely as he
watches you, and would baulk us at the last. And that is why I have held
my peace on the score of this warrant. What can it help that I should
trouble you with the matter until at the same time I can offer you some
way out?"

"The Frenchman has a throat, and throats can be slit," said the
downright King.

"So they can; and men can be hanged for slitting them," returned Sir
Lewis, and thereafter resumed and elaborated his first argument, using
now such forceful logic and obvious sincerity that Sir Walter was
convinced. He was no less convinced, too, of the peril in which he
stood. He plied those wits of his, which had rarely failed him in an
extremity. Manourie was the difficulty. But in his time he had known
many of these agents who, without sentimental interest and purely for
the sake of gold, were ready to play such parts; and never yet had
he known one who was not to be corrupted. So that evening he desired
Manourie's company in the room above stairs that had been set apart for
Sir Walter's use. Facing him across the table at which both were seated,
Sir Walter thrust his clenched fist upon the board, and, suddenly
opening it, dazzled the Frenchman's beady eyes with the jewel sparkling
in his palm.

"Tell me, Manourie, are you paid as much as that to betray me?"

Manourie paled a little under his tan. He was a swarthy, sharp-featured
fellow, slight and wiry. He looked into Sir Walter's grimly smiling
eyes, then again at the white diamond, from w