Part 11

“They are not,” said the landlord; there was a note of triumph in his voice. “A company of smugglers bore them away half an hour after your departure.”

“And you allowed them to leave your inn, after what I had said to you?” said Culpeper, striving to control the fury that was shaking him from head to foot.

“I could not help myself,” said the landlord, indifferently.

“And you could not help the King’s going, I suppose,” said the soldier, “even when he went past your very nose?”

“No, I could not help myself,” said the landlord again.

“And wherefore could you not?”

The soldier’s rage was giving place now to a self-contained harshness which did not distress the landlord to observe.

“I do not know why I could not stay the King’s going,” said the landlord.

“What do you mean?” said the soldier.

“When the King went,” said the landlord, “I was not the master of myself; but, thank God, I am master of myself now.”

“You will soon cease to be,” said the soldier, regarding him with a grim surprise.

“That is as maybe,” said the landlord.

The soldiers crowded about the landlord with sinister intention upon their faces. Captain Culpeper briefly told two of them to procure a rope.

“You will find plenty in the stable,” said the landlord.

Several of the soldiers chuckled.

“Do you know for what purpose we require it, good Master Innkeeper?” said Culpeper, laughingly.

“The signboard will suit your purpose best,” said the landlord.

“You oblige us vastly,” said the soldier.

The landlord astonished them vastly too. They had not looked for this demeanour in one who was about to undergo the penalty of death. They had never encountered such an indifference in the face of it before.

However, when the two men returned bearing a stout piece of hemp, an evidence was furnished of the price at which the landlord’s newly-acquired fortitude had been purchased. When his bloodshot eyes fell on the rope, a cord appeared to snap in the middle of his brain; his head revolved slowly on his neck; and he pitched heavily on to the kitchen floor.

They turned him over on his back, but all attempts to restore the landlord to sensibility failed. After a while he appeared to grow dimly conscious of his surroundings; but he was bereft of speech, and he had not the power to move. It mattered not what remedies they had recourse to, the horrible, convulsed white face still had the vacancy and the inanimation of death without the repose of it.

“’Tis a pity we could not hang the old rogue more prettily,” said Captain Culpeper, when all their exertions had failed of their effect. “For if ever a man did merit a hanging, here he lies. He hath played a double game all through. But what he could have hoped to gain by it, for the life of me I cannot see. He must have been a sanguine fellow to think that he could run with the hare, and hunt with the dogs. He must have known that he went in danger of being torn to pieces. But why he should first betray the King, and then promote his escape, passes me completely. A queer old rogue, this landlord. Now then, lift him up, lads, and set him in the place he himself did choose.”

They placed the noose around the landlord’s neck and bore him out into the shrewd air of the morning. It was still as dark as pitch; never a star looked out of the sky; mercifully the moon had hidden her face; and thus the body of the landlord was unregarded, as it swung in the wintry darkness from the signboard of the “Sea Rover.”

THE END.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.