Chapter VIII: Ezra Makes Up His Mind to a Dangerous Venture

The surly landlord of the “Indian’s Head” danced into the centre of his public room, the expression of fear expanding upon his face.

“Gentlemen,” he cried, appealing to Ezra and Pennington, “I demand your protection. I am beset by this man, who would kill me in my own house.”

“If you prefer to have it so,” spoke Scarlett with a swishing whir of his heavy blade, “I will dispatch you upon the lawn if you are possessed of one, or, in default of that, in the public road. I am of a liberal nature, and would as well please you as not in the place of your taking off.”

His agile point followed the churlish landlord in his caperings.

“Sir,” cried the man, addressing himself to Pennington, “I crave you to speak a word to this mad villain, who seems bound to spill my blood.”

Pennington arose and was about to remonstrate with the young soldier; but the latter stopped before he had well begun.

“Have the goodness to keep your place,” requested Scarlett, with a quick, fierce, unmistakable look. “There are some things, perhaps, that I can be crossed in,” here the look grew significant, “and made to appear cheap. But be assured, sir, that this is not one of them.”

At once Pennington sank back upon the settle and again the landlord resumed his capering before the swift-moving sword point.

“Now, rascal,” cried Scarlett, harshly, “will you do as I ask? Faith, I’m playing you easily enough; in Muscovy they’d have had your life for half this show of stubbornness.”

“I tell you I know no such gentleman,” cried the landlord. “How can I tell that which I know not?”

He whirled away before the brisk flash of the blade; and at the same time he continued, addressing Pennington, meaningly:

“I beg of you, sir, for the last time, to persuade this man to let be. I am but flesh and blood. I cannot withstand everything.”

Again Pennington seemed about to interfere; but once more the fierce glance of Scarlett awed him. Then the latter shortened his weapon and glowered at the innkeeper.

“And I call upon you for the last time to tell me who this man Pennington is!” he grated. “Quick now!”

The landlord’s eyes sought for a means of escape; but he was hard pressed to make use of any that presented themselves.

“I will tell,” he at length cried, desperately. “The man you want is there.”

His trembling finger indicated Pennington, who turned a shade paler, but sat composedly enough. Scarlett’s sword point fell; he turned upon Pennington and saluted him in a formal, military fashion, a satirical smile curling his moustache points upward.

“Sir,” said he, “I am most pleased. I will not say that I expected as much, but I can say that I am not at all surprised.”

Ezra watched the spy curiously. He saw him swallow once or twice in an effort to speak. But finally he managed to resume control of his tongue.

“You have found me out, then,” said he, and he smiled in a sickly fashion. “I was interested to see just how long it would take you.”

For all his speech faltered, his eyes were steady enough to threaten the innkeeper for betraying him. But the man returned the look defiantly.

“I’ll not be sworded to death, and you sitting by at your ease, never lifting a hand,” he declared sullenly.

Scarlett turned quickly upon the man.

“You have done your share to the furthering of the acquaintance of this gentleman and myself, and I am obliged to you. So now, back to your scullery and let us hear none of your protestations.”

The innkeeper went quickly enough; he had had a taste of the adventurer’s quality, and clearly desired no more of it. After he had vanished into his kitchen, Scarlett sheathed his blade, struck an attitude with his feet very wide apart and hooked his thumbs into his sword belt.

“So, so, good and excellent sirs,” said he with a lifting of his heavy brows. “It would seem that you have been making a laughing-stock of me.”

“Nothing was further from my intention,” Pennington hastened to say.

Disbelief was plain in Scarlett’s face; he turned to Ezra saying:

“And what answer has your intimate?”

“None, other than that I am not his intimate. To the best of my knowledge,” proceeded Ezra, “I have never met with this gentleman before to-night.”

Gilbert Scarlett shot him a mingled glance of astonishment and regret.

“I was mistaken in you, then,” spoke he. “I took you to be an upstanding youth of much character and straightforwardness.”

Ezra was about to speak in answer to this, but the young soldier waved his hand.

“Let me have no denials. I have eyes,” and he gestured angrily. “Also, I have perception, though you both seem to doubt it.”

“Sir,” spoke Pennington, in a soothing tone, “you much deceive yourself if you fancy that we have in any way sought to mislead you.”

He leaned forward upon the settle, his legs crossed and his hands upon his knees.

“Now,” he proceeded, “I leave it to you as a gentleman of wide experience and much service, to pass judgment upon what I am about to say.”

The adventurer unhooked his thumbs from his sword belt and twirled his moustache. He said nothing in reply; but there was a sardonic look in his face.

“I,” and Pennington tapped his chest, “am the person whom your young friend here,” with a nod toward Ezra, “was to inquire for. I acknowledge it.”

“It’s overlate for frankness,” said Gilbert Scarlett, grimly. “But, go on.”

“I am able to say in perfect good faith,” went on Pennington, “that I had no expectation of seeing him. Neither had I any notion that he knew anything of the affairs of Abdallah. As for my failure to acknowledge a connection with the story which you told me a while ago, you surely can feel no resentment for that. When a man is engaged in”—he paused and shrugged his shoulders—“well, in work of a more or less secret character, it is not quite safe for him to speak freely with strangers.”

The adventurer unbent his brows and his face altered in expression.

“Now,” said he, “that is talk that holds much sense. It is clear to me that you could not do other than you did.”

Then he turned to Ezra once more.

“Chance and circumstance seem to have taken you for their very own,” said he.

“Some things have befallen me of late days that make your saying seem like the truth,” said Ezra. “But my experience must be but a trifle, as compared with what yours must have been, sir. I have no doubt but that chance has figured much in your life.”

“Why,” answered the adventurer, “now that you mention it, it is true enough. What great matter is it for a lad to chance along a lonely wagonway near to sundown, and meet with a horseman who has had an accident befall him? And that you should chance to have the pleasure of this gentleman’s acquaintance,” indicating Pennington, “is, upon second thought, not a matter to marvel at. Why, I recall, how, when I served the Turk at Cairo, I met with an adventure that must have seemed like a miracle of chance. Moslems are a strange people, but they grow stranger still in their dealings with a Christian; and when that Christian happens to be in command of a squadron of them——”

But he stopped upon the very verge of the adventure. Pulling up a chair, he seated himself in it and addressing Ezra, said:

“But let us come to this message which Abdallah gave you. As you came here seeking Master Pennington, which I have no doubt you did, I suppose you brought the writing with you.”

During all which followed Scarlett’s entrance with the innkeeper, Pennington’s sharp glance kept shifting itself to Ezra. Now he spoke, eagerly:

“In that you bring us to a matter of consequence, sir. During your absence, we held some converse upon this very matter. And our young friend informed me that the dispatch is no longer in his possession.”

Scarlett folded his arms across his chest in an easy sort of way, and replied, lightly:

“I have no real knowledge of this affair, one way or the other, sir. But from your manner, I take it that this circumstance is irritating.”

“It is more than that,” spoke Pennington. “It may be fatal. General Gage was expecting——”

But here he checked himself after the manner of a cautious man who has caught himself in the midst of a dangerous admission.

Ezra, however, smiled.

“It is somewhat late,” said he, “to try and conceal the dispatch’s ultimate destination. Major Buckstone saw to my enlightenment at the very start.”

Pennington’s hands clenched.

“You saw him then! The old idiot! He would discuss our plans with the colonial council of war itself.”

“I have not the good fortune of this gentleman’s acquaintance,” spoke Scarlett, “but I think I know the type. The bluff old officer—honest as the sun—who knows nothing but his routine and the well ordering of his command. But,” with a careless wave of the hand, “what matters it? We are all friends, are we not? We are all fairly well gifted with understanding. So a trifle of plain talk will do no harm.”

Pennington pondered and nodded reluctantly.

“In a way,” said he, “you are right.”

“A frank question or two, when needed, will have no bad result,” said the adventurer. “And I think if they were applied here and now, we’d come at something of profit, perhaps.”

Pennington’s face flushed.

“I am beholden to you, sir,” said he, a trifle bitterly. Then turning to Ezra he said: “Perhaps you will now tell us how you came to so part with the papers entrusted to you?”

“Is it any great wonder,” said Ezra, “that I did not safeguard a message given me by people who later sought my life?”

He was determined to be as evasive as possible. If he hoped to come to the true depth and breadth of this spy system, he knew that he must meet craft with craft.

Pennington made no reply to this, but continued to sit and watch. The situation must have puzzled him; clearly he did not understand it.

But Scarlett was ready enough.

“For my part, I blame you but little,” he said. “It was but a churlish way to treat a messenger.”

There was a short pause; then the spy spoke.

“Might I ask,” he inquired, “who this mysterious person is to whom you confided this paper?”

Ezra shook his head and remained silent.

“As a grandson of Seth Prentiss,” continued Pennington, “I am loth to believe you other than a friend to honesty and good government.”

“And in that,” returned the boy, “you would be right.”

Scarlett here leaned forward.

“And was the gentleman to whom you entrusted the paper,” asked he, “of a like inclination?”

“He was.”

“Why, in that case,” and the soldier of fortune laughed good-humoredly, “I don’t think it any great matter. Let us but get word to the gentleman and he’ll take it to Boston himself, perhaps.”

Pennington’s eyes searched Ezra’s face, and the boy replied:

“Perhaps so; I have heard him say that he meant to make his way into Boston before long.”

The hidden meaning of this must have left its trace in Ezra’s voice, for Pennington’s gaze, if it were possible, grew keener.

“That may, perhaps, serve,” said the man. Then he continued: “It so chances that I am left in a most peculiar position by your unexpected connection with this affair, Master Prentiss.” There was concern in his voice as he went on. “It will be difficult for me to explain it to those to whom I must make explanation. And it will be equally difficult for them to understand.”

A thrill ran through Ezra. As plainly as day he read the purpose of the man in his crafty eyes. And, so it flashed upon him, as that purpose would help him in his own, he at once fell in with it.

“If I could but make my own explanation,” he said, “it would greatly lighten your labor.”

The eyes of the spy snapped.

“To do that you must needs go into Boston,” he said. “Would you venture that?”

“I have been there before,” answered the boy. “And why not again? And I think this gentleman,” nodding smilingly at Scarlett, “would also make the venture if it could be accomplished.”

“As well as not,” said the soldier of fortune, carelessly. “One place is much like another to me.”

There was triumph in Pennington’s face as he arose.

“Excellent!” he cried. “Both of you shall cross the river to-night. I have the means at hand. And I will present you to those,” here the high-pitched, disagreeable laugh rang out, “who will be delighted to welcome you.”