“Put up your blade, Sir Rowland,” rejoined Jonathan, resuming his former calm demeanour, “King James the Third will need it.  I have no intention of arresting you.  I have a different game to play; and it’ll be your own fault, if you don’t come off the winner.  I offer you my assistance on certain terms.  The proposal is so far from being exorbitant, that it should be trebled if I had not a fellow-feeling in the cause.  To be frank with you, I have an affront to requite, which can be settled at the same time, and in the same way with your affair.  That’s worth something to me; for I don’t mind paying for revenge.  After all a thousand pounds is a trifle to rid you of an upstart, who may chance to deprive you of tens of thousands.”

“Did I hear you aright?” asked Trenchard, with startling eagerness.

“Certainly,” replied Jonathan, with the most perfect sangfroid, “I’ll undertake to free you from the boy.  That’s part of the bargain.”

“Is he alive!” vociferated Trenchard.

“To be sure,” returned Wild; “he’s not only alive, but likely for life, if we don’t clip the thread.”

Sir Rowland caught at a chair for support, and passed his hand across his brow, on which the damp had gathered thickly.

“The intelligence seems new to you.  I thought I’d been sufficiently explicit,” continued Jonathan.  “Most persons would have guessed my meaning.”

“Then it was not a dream!” ejaculated Sir Rowland in a hollow voice, and as if speaking to himself.  “I did see them on the platform of the bridge—­the child and his preserver!  They were not struck by the fallen ruin, nor whelmed in the roaring flood,—­or, if they were, they escaped as I escaped.  God!  I have cheated myself into a belief that the boy perished!  And now my worst fears are realized—­he lives!”

“As yet,” returned Jonathan, with fearful emphasis.

“I cannot—­dare not injure him,” rejoined Trenchard, with a haggard look, and sinking, as if paralysed, into a chair.

Jonathan laughed scornfully.

“Leave him to me,” he said.  “He shan’t trouble you further.”

“No,” replied Sir Rowland, who appeared completely prostrated.  “I will struggle no longer with destiny.  Too much blood has been shed already.”

“This comes of fine feelings!” muttered Jonathan, contemptuously.  “Give me your thorough-paced villain.  But I shan’t let him off thus.  I’ll try a strong dose.—­Am I to understand that you intend to plead guilty, Sir Rowland?” he added.  “If so, I may as well execute my warrant.”

“Stand off, Sir!” exclaimed Trenchard, starting suddenly backwards.

“I knew that would bring him to,” thought Wild.

“Where is the boy?” demanded Sir Rowland.

“At present under the care of his preserver—­one Owen Wood, a carpenter, by whom he was brought up.”

“Wood!” exclaimed Trenchard,—­“of Wych Street?”