rude
place several men were now stopping, and had been stopping for some
days.

That fact in itself was almost sufficient for Lord Claud; but
somebody had found a scrap of torn paper with some French words
upon it, and this had made assurance doubly sure. Moreover, Lord
Claud believed it to be the writing of the man he had duelled with
beneath Barns Elms.

To this inn (if such it could be called) he and Tom must journey,
with a peasant for a guide to take them across the pass. Upon
reaching the place, his idea now was that he should appear sorely
smitten by the cold, as some travellers were; so ill and unfit for
further journeying, that he should have perforce to send Tom on
alone with the guide, whilst he returned to the valley. All this
they should discuss in their room at night, assured that they would
be overlooked and overheard; and when quite certain that eyes were
watching them, Lord Claud was to unrip his doublet and take thence
a packet of papers, sealed with the signet of the Duke of
Marlborough, and sew this same packet firmly into Tom's coat.

In reality this tempting-looking packet with the Duke's seal
contained nothing but a sheet of blank parchment. The real missive
for the Duke Victor Amadeus was written on a thin paper, and was
concealed between the soles of Lord Claud's boots--though even Tom
did not know that. The packet was arranged as a blind, if need
should be; and now it seemed as though the need had come.

Then on the following morning Tom and the guide would start forth
across the pass; whilst Lord Claud should creep feebly down to the
valley, watched, perhaps, but probably unmolested. The majority of
the men, at any rate, would most certainly follow Tom.

"There are but four," said Lord Claud; "and if one be Montacute
himself, I doubt if he will stir from the inn. He will try to keep
an eye upon both, being a man full of cunning himself. I reckon
that he will send two men after you, Tom, and one after me. I
shall, after a while, pause, lie in wait, and kill that man. Then I
shall flee to the valley, get a guide who can show me the other
pass, and make such way from the seat of peril that I shall be
well-nigh across the frontier before Sir James knows that one of
his quarry has escaped him.

"As for you, my boy, you may like enough escape with a sound skin,
unless Montacute himself pursues, making three to one--for one
cannot trust these peasants to show fight. But be the issue what it