“I will take the risk of that,” he said; “I shall take some killing, I think.  And killing is a game that more than one can play at!  If I have to sell my life, I will make it cost the French King dear.”

“Right, Tom; but that will not give back a gallant servant to Her Majesty of England!”

“I am not dead yet,” answered Tom, with a grim laugh.  “Tell me the plan which you have worked out in your head, my lord; for your wits are seven-fold keener than mine.”

Then Lord Claud unfolded the plan which had been working in his busy brain during the day that Tom had been sleeping, after he had heard news which made him sure that his mission was suspected, and that he would be stopped and robbed if possible.

Higher up the mountain side, just where the snow line lay, above which there was everlasting ice and snow, was a little rough hostel, where travellers rested and slept before they tried the pass itself.  An old half-witted man and his goitred wife kept the place, and provided rough food and bedding for travellers, though interesting themselves in no wise with their concerns.  In that 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.