to pay for
doubtful secrecy, when _certain silence_ might be so cheaply procured."

"You would purchase it at the price of your head," replied Jonathan,
knitting his brows. "Sir Rowland," he added, savagely, and with somewhat
of the look of a bull-dog before he flies at his foe, "if it were my
pleasure to do so, I could crush you with a breath. You are wholly in my
power. Your name, with the fatal epithet of 'dangerous' attached to it,
stands foremost on the list of Disaffected now before the Secret
Committee. I hold a warrant from Mr. Walpole for your apprehension."

"Arrested!" exclaimed Trenchard, drawing his sword.

"Put up your blade, Sir Rowland," rejoined Jonathan, resuming his former
calm demeanour, "King James the Third will need it. I have no intention
of arresting you. I have a different game to play; and it'll be your own
fault, if you don't come off the winner. I offer you my assistance on
certain terms. The proposal is so far from being exorbitant, that it
should be trebled if I had not a fellow-feeling in the cause. To be
frank with you, I have an affront to requite, which can be settled at
the same time, and in the same way with your affair. That's worth
something to me; for I don't mind paying for revenge. After all a
thousand pounds is a trifle to rid you of an upstart, who may chance to
deprive you of tens of thousands."

"Did I hear you aright?" asked Trenchard, with startling eagerness.

"Certainly," replied Jonathan, with the most perfect _sangfroid_, "I'll
undertake to free you from the boy. That's part of the bargain."

"Is he alive!" vociferated Trenchard.

"To be sure," returned Wild; "he's not only alive, but likely for life,
if we don't clip the thread."

Sir Rowland caught at a chair for support, and passed his hand across
his brow, on which the damp had gathered thickly.

"The intelligence seems new to you. I thought I'd been sufficiently
explicit," continued Jonathan. "Most persons would have guessed my
meaning."

"Then it was _not_ a dream!" ejaculated Sir Rowland in a hollow voice,
and as if speaking to himself. "I _did_ see them on the platform of the
bridge--the child and his preserver! They were _not_ struck by the
fallen ruin, nor whelmed in the roaring flood,--or, if they _were_, they
escaped as I escaped. God! I have cheated myself into a belief that the
boy perished! And now my worst fears are realized--he lives!"

"As yet," returned Jonathan, with fearful emphasis.