.

From the window above a piercing cry of agony rang out.

"Tony! Tony!"

Creagh slewed round his head and threw up his free hand.

"'Toinette!" he cried.

But Miss Westerleigh had fainted, and Volney was already carrying her from
the window with the flicker of a grim smile on his face. I noticed with
relief that Craven had disappeared from sight.

My relief was temporary. When I turned to leave I found my limbs clogged
with impedimenta. To each arm hung a bailiff, and a third clung like a
leech to my legs. Some paces distant Sir James Craven stood hulloing them
to the sport with malign pleasure.

"To it, fustian breeches! Yoho, yoho! There's ten guineas in it for each
of you and two hundred for me. 'Slife, down with him, you red-haired
fellow! Throw him hard. Ecod, I'll teach you to be rough with Craven, my
cockerel Montagu!" And the bully kicked me twice where I lay.

They dragged me to my feet, and Craven began to sharpen his dull wit on
me.

"Two hundred guineas I get out of this, you cursed rebel highwayman,
besides the pleasure of seeing you wear hemp--and that's worth a hundred
more, sink my soul to hell if it isn't."

"Your soul is sunk there long ago, and this blackguard job sends you one
circle lower in the Inferno, Catchpoll Craven," said a sneering voice
behind him.

Craven swung on his heel in a fury, but Volney's easy manner--and perhaps
the reputation of his small sword too--damped the mettle of his courage.
He drew back with a curse, whispered a word into the ear of the nearest
bailiff, and shouldered his way into the crowd, from the midst of which he
watched us with a sneer.

"And what mad folly, may I ask, brought you back to London a-courting the
gallows?" inquired Volney of me.

"Haven't you heard that Malcolm Macleod is taken?" I asked.

"And did you come to exchange places with him? On my soul you're madder
than I thought. Couldn't you trust me to see that my future brother-in-law
comes to no harm without ramming your own head down the lion's throat?
Faith, I think Craven has the right of it: the hempen noose is yawning for
such fools as you."

The bailiffs took me to the New Prison and thrust me into an underground
cell about the walls of which moisture hung in beads. Like the rest of the
prisoners I was heavily ironed by day and fastened down to the floor by a
staple at night. One hour in the day we were suffered to go into the yard
for exercise and to be inspected and comment