Sir Rowland, who had continued absorbed in thought, with his eyes fixed upon the sloop, as she made her way slowly down the river, disembarked more leisurely.

“At length I am my own master,” murmured the knight, as his foot touched the strand.

“Not so, Sir Rowland,” returned Jonathan; “you are my prisoner.”

“How!” ejaculated Trenchard, starting back and drawing his sword.

“You are arrested for high treason,” rejoined Wild, presenting a pistol at his head, while he drew forth a parchment,—­“here is my warrant.”

“Traitor!” cried Sir Rowland—­“damned—­double-dyed traitor!”

“Away with him,” vociferated Jonathan to his myrmidons, who, having surrounded Trenchard, hurried him off to the coach before he could utter another word,—­“first to Mr. Walpole, and then to Newgate.  And now, Quilt,” he continued, addressing the janizary, who approached him with the horse, “fly to St. Giles’s round-house, and if, through the agency of that treacherous scoundrel, Terry O’Flaherty, whom I’ve put in my Black List, old Wood should have found his way there, and have been detained by Sharpies as I directed, you may release him.  I don’t care how soon he learns that he has lost his adopted son.  When I’ve escorted you proud fool to his new quarters, I’ll proceed to the Mint and look after Jack Sheppard.”

With this, he mounted his steed and rode off.

CHAPTER XVIII.

How Jack Sheppard broke out of the Cage at Willesden.

The heart-piercing scream uttered by Mrs. Sheppard after the commission of the robbery in Willesden church was productive of unfortunate consequences to her son.  Luckily, she was bereft of consciousness, and was thus spared the additional misery of witnessing what afterwards befell him.  Startled by the cry, as may be supposed, the attention of the whole congregation was drawn towards the quarter whence it proceeded.  Amongst others, a person near the door, roused by the shriek, observed a man make his exit with the utmost precipitation.  A boy attempted to follow; but as the suspicions of the lookers-on were roused by the previous circumstances, the younger fugitive was seized and detained.  Meanwhile, Mr. Kneebone, having been alarmed by something in the widow’s look before her feelings found vent in the manner above described, thrust his hand instinctively into his coat in search of his pocket-book,—­about the security of which, as it contained several letters and documents implicating himself and others in the Jacobite plot, he was, not unnaturally, solicitous,—­and finding it gone, he felt certain he had been robbed.  Turning quickly round, in the hope of discovering the thief, he was no less surprised than distressed—­for in spite of his faults, the woollen-draper was a good-natured fellow—­to perceive Jack Sheppard in custody.  The truth at once flashed across his mind.  This, then, was the cause of the widow’s wild inexplicable