202 A JACOBITE EXILE

“How long is it since any of you saw him last?”

“He went round with the wine-skin, and filled our cups
just as we sat down to breakfast,” one of the men said.
“T have not noticed him since.” Nor had any of the
others.

“Then it will be no use to pursue; he has had more
than half an hour’s start, and long before this he will have
mounted Ben Soloman’s horse and have ridden off.

“Well, comrade,” he said, turning to Charlie, “this set-
tles your movements. I was but half in earnest before as
to your joining us; but it is clear now that there’s nothing
else for you to do for the present. ‘This fellow will,
directly he gets to Warsaw, denounce you as the murderer
of his master. That he is sure to do to avert suspicion
from himself, and if you were to return there it would go
hard with you. So for a time you must throw in your lot
with us.”

When this was translated to Charlie, he saw at once the
force of the argument. He could not have denied that
the Jew had fallen in a hand-to-hand struggle with himself,
and were he to appear in Warsaw he might be killed by the
co-religionists of Ben Soloman; or if he escaped this,
might lie in a dungeon for months awaiting his trial, and
perhaps be finally executed. There was nothing for him
now but to rejoin the Swedes, and it would be some time
yet before he would be sufficiently recovered to undertake
such a journey.

“T should not mind if I could send a letter to Allan
Ramsay, to tell him what has befallen me; he will be
thinking I am dead, and will at any rate be in great anxiety
about me.”

“J have taken a liking to you, young fellow,” the leader
said, “and will send in one of my men to Warsaw with a
letter; that is, if you can write one.”

“Yes, I can write. Fortunately there are paper, pen,