'By repute.'

'But not Chester? . . . Chester was at one time his led-captain: but
they have quarrelled since, and it looks as if--'

He did not finish the sentence, but left me to guess what remained.

'You mean,' said I, 'it looks as if Chester sold the pass? Well, if
he did, I know nothing about it, or about him. This is the first I
have heard of him. But speaking at a venture, I should say that
either his neck's in a halter or he has changed sides and is riding
off with our troops.'

Sir Luke nodded, but said nothing; and after a while strode to the
window. When he spoke again it was with his back turned to me.

'I wonder,' he said, 'my fellows didn't kill you out of hand.'

'They were making a plaguy near bid for it,' I answered; 'but Lady
Glynn interposed.'

'And that's the strange part of the business. All rebels, as a rule,
are poison to her. . . . As for me, you understand, a man on campaign
picks up a sort of feeling for the enemy. He gets to see that all
the right's not on one side, nor all the wrong on t'other. I dare
say, now, that your experience is much the same?' I did not answer
this and after a pause he went on, still staring out of window,
'I believed in the Lord's Anointed, for my part: but allowing, for
argument's sake, the right's on that side, there's enough villainy
and self-seeking mixed up with it to poison an honest man. . . .
I shouldn't wonder now that there's something to be said even for
Chester.'

'That hardly seems possible,' said I, wondering what his drift might
be.

'I don't know. Wait till you've heard his side of the case. . . .
But to go back to our subject--you see I don't bear you any malice: I
am out of this quarrel, and--saving my lady's obstinacy--I don't
see--I really don't see why I should billet myself with His Majesty's
prisoners. What's more, I have an estate in the east of the county,
a little this side of Plymouth. They quartered a troop of your
fellows upon it last year, and the place, I hear, is a wilderness.
. . . If I could get to it, or to Plymouth--well, one good turn
deserves another, eh?--that is, if you're fit to travel?'

I think that at this point he faced around and eyed me for the first
time. But I made show that I had dropped asleep. I heard him swear
under his breath, and half a minute later he left the room.

He had been offering me escape. But why? I turned his words over,
and the more I turned them the less I liked them.