“Yes, I can write.  Fortunately there are paper, pen, and an ink horn on that shelf.  Ben Soloman brought them the last time he came, to write down the lies he wanted me to testify to.  I am greatly obliged to you, and will do it at once.”

As he had, only the day before he was attacked, sent off a messenger to Count Piper, telling him all he had done the previous week, there was no occasion to repeat this, and he had only to give an account of his capture, and the events that had since occurred.

“You see,” he said, “I cannot return to Warsaw.  The Jew who was here unfortunately heard that it was in a struggle with me Ben Soloman was killed, and he will, of course, denounce me as his murderer, though the deed was done in fair fight.  I should have all his tribe against me, and might be imprisoned for months awaiting trial.  I am still very weak, and could not attempt the journey to the frontier.  I am, however, gaining strength, and, as soon as I am quite recovered, I shall take the first opportunity of leaving the men I am with, and making for the Swedish camp.  Please forward this news by a sure hand to Count Piper, and express my sorrow that my mission has not been completed, although, indeed, I do not think that my further stay at Warsaw would have been any great service, for it is clear that the great majority of the traders will not move in the matter until the Swedes advance, and, from their point of view, it is not to their interest to do so.

“I know but little of the men I am with at present, beyond the fact that they are bandits, nor can I say whether they are disbanded soldiers, or criminals who have escaped from justice; but at any rate they show me no ill will.  I have no doubt I shall be able to get on fairly with them, until I am able to make my escape.  I wish I had poor Stanislas with me.  Only one of the men here speaks Swedish, and he does not know very much of the language.  I cannot say, at present, whether the twenty men here are the whole of the band, or whether they are only a portion of it.  Nor do I know whether the men subsist by plundering the peasants, or venture on more serious crimes.  Thanking you for your great kindness during my stay at Warsaw, I remain, yours gratefully—­

“Charlie Carstairs.”

While he was occupied in writing this letter, an animated conversation was going on between the bandits.  Charlie gathered that this related to their future operations, but more than this he could not learn.  In a postscript to the letter, he requested Allan Ramsay to hand over to the bearer some of the clothes left in his lodgings, and to pay him for his trouble.

“As to the money I left in your hands, I do not think it worth while for you to send it.  However much these men may consider me a comrade, I have not sufficient faith in their honesty to believe that money would reach me safely; but, if you send me a suit of clothes, two or three gold pieces might be wrapped up in a piece of cloth and shoved into the toe of a shoe.  The parcel must be a small one, or there would be little chance of the man carrying it far.  I will ask him, however, to bring me a sword, if you will buy one for me, and my pistols.”