“Have you got them?” cried a loud voice, not entirely unfamiliar to Paul, although he could not for the moment remember where he had heard it before.

“We have got one-got the most important one,” answered the man who had been leader of the little band.  “The other has got off; but that matters less.”

“By the holy mass, it was the other that I wanted the more,” cried the rougher voice, as the man came out swearing roundly; “I had an account of my own to square with him, and square it I will one of these days.  But bring in the prize—­bring him in.  Let us have a look at him.  He is worth the capture, anyhow, as the Chief will say when he returns.  He is not back yet.  We have all been out scouring the forest; but you always have the luck, Sledge Hammer George.  I said if any one brought them in it would be you.”

Paul had by this time recognized the speaker, who was standing in the entrance of the cave with the light full upon his face.  It was none other than his old adversary, Simon Dowsett, whom he had twice defeated in his endeavour to carry off the lady of his choice; and who was, as he well knew, his bitterest foe.  His heart beat fast and his breath came fitfully as he realized this, and he looked quickly round toward the black forest, as if wondering if he could plunge in there and escape.  But a strong hand was laid upon his arm, and he was pushed into the cave, where the ruddy glow of the fire fell full upon him.

Simon Dowsett, who in the absence of the Chief, as he was called, acted as the captain of the band, strode forward and fixed his eyes upon the lad, his face changing as he did so until its expression was one of diabolical malice.

“What?” he cried aloud; “at the old game again?  You thought to trick us once more, and again to get off with a sound skin?—­Lads, this isn’t the prince at all; this is the other of them, who has fooled you as he fooled the Chief himself long years ago.  What were you thinking of to take his word for it?  And you have let the real one slip through your fingers.

“Ha, ha, Sledge Hammer George! you are not quite so clever as you thought.  Why did you not wring the truth out of him, when the other quarry could not have been far off?  You have been pretty gulls to have been taken in like this!”

The other man, who had now come up, looked full into Paul’s face, and asked, not savagely though sternly enough: 

“Which are you, lad? speak the truth.  Are you the Prince of Wales, or not?”

It was useless now to attempt to keep up the deception.  Paul carried the mark of Simon Dowsett’s bullet in his shoulder, and he was too well known by him to play a part longer.  Looking full at the man who addressed him, he answered boldly: 

“I am Paul Stukely, not the prince at all.  He is beyond the reach of your malice.  He is in safe shelter now.”

“Where is he?” asked the man quietly.

“I shall not tell you,” answered Paul, who knew that these robbers were so daring that they might even make a raid on the Priory, or watch it night and day, and to prevent the escape of the prince from thence, if their suspicions were once attracted, to the spot.