ehan
and I heaved up Fulke--he was a heavy man--and lowered him into the shaft by
a rope, not so as to stand on our gold, but dangling by his shoulders a
little above. It was turn of ebb, and the water came to his knees. He said
nothing, but shivered somewhat.

'Then Jehan of a sudden beat down Gilbert's wrist with his sheathed
dagger, "Stop!" he said. "He swallows his beads."

'"Poison, belike," said De Aquila. "It is good for men who know too much.
I have carried it these thirty years. Give me!"

'Then Gilbert wept and howled. De Aquila ran the beads through his
fingers. The last one--I have said they were large nuts--opened in two
halves on a pin, and there was a small folded parchment within. On it was
written: "_The Old Dog goes to Salisbury to be beaten. I have his Kennel.
Come quickly._"

'"This is worse than poison," said De Aquila, very softly, and sucked in
his cheeks. Then Gilbert grovelled in the rushes, and told us all he knew.
The letter, as we guessed, was from Fulke to the Duke (and not the first
that had passed between them); Fulke had given it to Gilbert in the
chapel, and Gilbert thought to have taken it by morning to a certain
fishing-boat at the wharf, which trafficked between Pevensey and the
French shore. Gilbert was a false fellow, but he found time between his
quakings and shakings to swear that the master of the boat knew nothing of
the matter.

'"He hath called me shaved head," said Gilbert, "and he hath thrown
haddock-guts at me; but for all that, he is no traitor."

'"I will have no clerk of mine mishandled or miscalled," said De Aquila.
"That seaman shall be whipped at his own mast. Write me first a letter,
and thou shalt bear it, with the order for the whipping, to-morrow to the
boat."

'At this Gilbert would have kissed De Aquila's hand--he had not hoped to
live until the morning--and when he trembled less he wrote a letter as from
Fulke to the Duke saying that the Kennel, which signified Pevensey, was
shut, and that the old Dog (which was De Aquila) sat outside it, and,
moreover, that all had been betrayed.

'"Write to any man that all is betrayed," said De Aquila, "and even the
Pope himself would sleep uneasily. Eh, Jehan? If one told thee all was
betrayed, what wouldst thou do?"

'"I would run away," said Jehan. "It might be true."

'"Well said," quoth De Aquila. "Write, Gilbert, that Montgomery, the great
Earl, hath made his peace with the King, and that little D'Arcy, who