Philip retreated a few steps, and still keeping his attention on the jailer, read the writing with some difficulty by the aid of the dim light.

“Why told you me not this before?” he demanded.

“Because it would have broke your sleep, and for another reason.  And now, Philip, will you ruin yourself and me, or will you remain?”

“Good Sam,” said Philip, extending his hand and raising the other up, “let thou and I be sworn friends.  There is some mystery behind this matter which it behooves us both to have cleared up.  Answer me a question.  Did Master Spikeman know of that paper?”

“Surely he did.  He inquired of me concerning it.”

“Umph!” grunted Philip.  “Now tell again, what is that other reason why thou didst say nothing of the paper to me before?”

“Answer for answer; tickle me and I will scratch thee.  I will answer that question if you will me another.”

“There is reason in thee.  I promise.”

“Because Master Spikeman commanded me not.”

“And canst tell why he wanted to speak to me alone?”

“To get to the bottom of sundry plots wherewith you were acquainted, and which you had partly confessed.  And now it is my turn to ask questions, so tell me how gattest thou rid of the irons?”

“Master Spikeman unfastened them.”

“I might have guessed as much before,” said Bars, scratching his head.

“Hark ye, Sam, that same canon-ball of thine which thou seemest to take so great delight in digging with thy fingers, would have been a bloody coxcomb had I followed the advice of our friend, Master Spikeman.”

“How!” exclaimed the jailer, did he counsel injury to me?”

“Thou hast said.  At any rate, to my thinking, there was not much difference from that.”

“The accursed Judas!” burst out the excited jailer; “the blood-thirsty Joab, who would have had me smitten under the fifth rib.  Profane Korah, Dathan and Abiram, whom the earth swallowed up for their bitterness against Moses, were children of light compared with this horrid Philistine.”

“I suppose she was sick at the stomach, and so gulped them down for bitters, just as my good mother used to give me wormwood when I was weakly in the spring,” said Philip, laughing.  At any other time this speech would have drawn down a serious remonstrance for its impiety, but at the present moment Sam was too much engaged with the treachery of Spikeman to bestow upon it any attention.

“Philip,” he said, “I accept thy offer to be sworn friends.  This Satan, this Pharaoh, this platter with the inside unwashed, shall not have another chance to set on honest men to murder one another.  Hearken, and thou shalt have another secret.  It was this hell incarnate who commanded me to load thee with irons, and to starve thee besides, but that I could not do.”