“How does this concern me?” asked the sheriff.

“You shall hear.  I had been on the outposts that night, and, returning to the camp, I surprised two men robbing, beating, and, as I thought, murdering a third.  One of the vagabonds escaped undetected, but with a blow from the butt of my musket which he will carry to his grave.  The other I thrashed on the spot.  He was the bailiff Scroope, whom you put up to witness against me.  Their victim was the messenger from the castle, and he was James Wilson, otherwise Wilson Garth.  You know this?  No?  Then listen.  Rumor of his treachery, and of the price he had been paid for it, had already been bruited abroad, and the two scoundrels had gone out to waylay and rob him.  He was lamed in the struggle and faint from loss of blood.  I took him back and bound up his wound.  He limped to the end of his life.”

“Still I fail to see how this touches myself,” interrupted the sheriff.

“Really?  I shall show you.  Next morning, under cover of a thick fog, we besieged the city.  We got beneath your guns and against your gates before we were seen.  Then a company of horse came out to us. You were there.  You remember it?  Yes?  At one moment we came within four yards.  I saw you struck down and reel out of the saddle.  ‘This man,’ I thought, ’believes in his heart that I did him a grievous wrong.  I shall now do him a signal service, though he never hear of it until the Judgment Day.’  I dismounted, lifted you up, bound a kerchief about your head, and was about to replace you on your horse.  At that instant a musket-shot struck the poor beast, and it fell dead.  At the same instant one of our own men fell, and his riderless horse was prancing away.  I caught it, threw you on to its back, turned his head towards the castle, and drove it hard among your troops.  Do you know what happened next?”

“Happened next—­” repeated the sheriff mechanically, with astonishment written on every feature of his face.

“No, you were insensible,” continued Ralph.  “At that luckless moment the drum beat to arms in a regiment of foot behind us.  The horse knew the call and answered it.  Wheeling about, it carried you into the heart of our own camp.  There you were known, tried as a deserter, and imprisoned.  Perhaps it was natural that you should set down your ill fortune to me.”

The sheriff’s eyes were riveted on Ralph’s face, and for a time he seemed incapable of speech.

“Is this truth?” he asked at length.

“God’s truth,” Ralph answered.

“The kerchief—­what color was it?”

“Yellow.”

“Any name or mark on it?  I have it to this day.”

“None—­wait; there was a rose pricked out in worsted on one corner.”

The sheriff got up, with lips compressed and wide eyes.  He made for the door, and pulled at it with wasted violence.  It was opened from the other side by the under gaoler, and the sheriff rushed out.