y her to some
friend of his own.

"Well," thought Dick, "between then and now I will find me the means to
bring that traitor under; for I think, by the mass, that I be now
absolved from any gratitude or obligation; and when war is open, there
is a fair chance for all."

In the meanwhile, here he was in a sore plight.

For some little way farther he struggled forward through the forest; but
what with the pain of his wounds, the darkness of the night, and the
extreme uneasiness and confusion of his mind, he soon became equally
unable to guide himself or to continue to push through the close
undergrowth, and he was fain at length to sit down and lean his back
against a tree.

When he awoke from something betwixt sleep and swooning, the grey of the
morning had begun to take the place of night. A little chilly breeze was
bustling among the trees, and as he still sat staring before him, only
half awake, he became aware of something dark that swung to and fro
among the branches, some hundred yards in front of him. The progressive
brightening of the day and the return of his own senses at last enabled
him to recognise the object. It was a man hanging from the bough of a
tall oak. His head had fallen forward on his breast; but at every
stronger puff of wind his body span round and round, and his legs and
arms tossed, like some ridiculous plaything.

Dick clambered to his feet, and, staggering and leaning on the
tree-trunks as he went, drew near to this grim object.

The bough was perhaps twenty feet above the ground, and the poor fellow
had been drawn up so high by his executioners that his boots swung clear
above Dick's reach; and as his hood had been drawn over his face, it was
impossible to recognise the man.

Dick looked about him right and left; and at last he perceived that the
other end of the cord had been made fast to the trunk of a little
hawthorn which grew, thick with blossom, under the lofty arcade of the
oak. With his dagger, which alone remained to him of all his arms, young
Shelton severed the rope, and instantly, with a dead thump, the corpse
fell in a heap upon the ground.

Dick raised the hood; it was Throgmorton, Sir Daniel's messenger. He had
not gone far upon his errand. A paper, which had apparently escaped the
notice of the men of the Black Arrow, stuck from the bosom of his
doublet, and Dick, pulling it forth, found it was Sir Daniel's letter to
Lord Wensleydale.

"Come," thought he, "if the