d employed; the
least delay, he urged, and the men might be gone into hiding. But on
this a wrangle took place, in the empty street before the half-roused
inn; with a milk-girl and a couple of drunken sailors for witnesses. Mr.
Dunborough, who was of the party will-he, nill-he, and asked nothing
better than to take out in churlishness the pressure put upon him, stood
firmly to it, he would take no more than one person to the men. He would
take Sir George, if he pleased, but he would take no one else.

'I'll have no lawyer to make evidence!' he cried boastfully. 'And I'll
take no one but on terms. I'll have no Jemmy Twitcher with me.
That's flat.'

Mr. Fishwick in a great rage was for insisting; but Sir George stopped
him. 'On what terms?' he asked the other.

'If the girl be unharmed, we go unharmed. One and all!' Mr. Dunborough
answered. 'Damme!' he continued with a great show of bravado, 'do you
think I am going to peach on 'em? Not I. There's the offer, take it or
leave it.'

Sir George might have broken down his opposition by the same arguments
addressed to his safety which had brought him so far. But time was
everything, and Soane was on fire to know the best or worst. 'Agreed!'
he cried. 'Lead the way, sir! And do you, Mr. Fishwick, await me here.'

'We must have time,' Mr. Dunborough grumbled, hesitating, and looking
askance at the attorney--he hated him. 'I can't answer for an hour or
two. I know a place, and I know another place, and there is another
place. And they may be at one or another, or the other. D'you see?'

'I see that it is your business,' Sir George answered with a glance,
before which the other's eyes fell. 'Wait until noon, Mr. Fishwick. If
we have not returned at that hour, be good enough to swear an
information against this gentleman, and set the constables to work.'

Mr. Dunborough muttered that it lay on Sir George's head if ill came of
it; but that said, swung sulkily on his heel. Mr. Fishwick, when the two
were some way down the street, ran after Soane, and asked in a whisper
if his pistols were primed; when he returned satisfied on that point,
the servant, whom he had left at the door of the inn, had vanished. The
lawyer made a shrewd guess that he would have an eye to his master's
safety, and retired into the house with less misgiving.

He got his breakfast early, and afterwards dozed awhile, resting his
aching bones in a corner of the coffee-room. It was nine and after, and
the