“Poor child!” muttered Trenchard, abstractedly; “the whole scene upon the river is passing before me.  I hear the splash in the water—­I see the white object floating like a sea-bird on the tide—­it will not sink!”

“’Sblood!” exclaimed Jonathan, in a tone of ill-disguised contempt; “it won’t do to indulge those fancies now.  Be seated, and calm yourself.”

“I have often conjured up some frightful vision of the dead,” murmured the knight, “but I never dreamed of an interview with the living.”

“It’ll be over in a few minutes,” rejoined Jonathan, impatiently; “in fact, it’ll be over too soon for me.  I like such interviews.  But we waste time.  Have the goodness to affix your name to that memorandum, Sir Rowland.  I require nothing, you see, till my share of the contract is fulfilled.”

Trenchard took up a pen.

“It’s the boy’s death-warrant,” observed Jonathan, with a sinister smile.

“I cannot sign it,” returned Trenchard.

“Damnation!” exclaimed Wild with a snarl, that displayed his glistening fangs to the farthest extremity of his mouth, “I’m not to be trifled with thus.  That paper must be signed, or I take my departure.”

“Go, Sir,” rejoined the knight, haughtily.

“Ay, ay, I’ll go, fast enough!” returned Jonathan, putting his hands into his pockets, “but not alone, Sir Rowland.”

At this juncture, the door was flung open, and Charcam entered, dragging in Thames, whom he held by the collar, and who struggled in vain to free himself from the grasp imposed upon him.

“Here’s one of the thieves, Sir Rowland!” cried the attendant.  “I was only just in time.  The young rascal had learnt from some of the women-servants that Lady Trafford was from home, and was in the very act of making off when I got down stairs.  Come along, my Newgate bird!” he continued, shaking him with great violence.

Jonathan gave utterance to a low whistle.

“If things had gone smoothly,” he thought, “I should have cursed the fellow’s stupidity.  As it is, I’m not sorry for the blunder.”

Trenchard, meanwhile, whose gaze was fixed upon the boy, became livid as death, but he moved not a muscle.

“’T is he!” he mentally ejaculated.

“What do you think of your nephew, Sir Rowland?” whispered Jonathan, who sat with his back towards Thames, so that his features were concealed from the youth’s view.  “It would be a thousand pities, wouldn’t it, to put so promising a lad out of the way?”

“Devil!” exclaimed the knight fiercely, “Give me the paper.”

Jonathan hastily picked up the pen, and presented it to Trenchard, who attached his signature to the document.

“If I am the devil,” observed Wild, “as some folks assert, and I myself am not unwilling to believe, you’ll find that I differ from the generally-received notions of the arch-fiend, and faithfully execute the commands of those who confide their souls to my custody.”