330 A JACOPITE EXILE

and took part in the robbery near Dorking—we have found
some of the watches and other plunder in your bed-room,
—or whether you escape trial for these offences. You
may be wanted for other similar affairs.”

“Yes, sir,” Tony put in. ‘Now I see him he answers
exactly to the description of a man the officers have been
in search of for a long time. He goes by the name of
Dick Cureton, and has been engaged in at least a dozen
highway robberies to my knowledge.”

“You see,” Charlie went on, “there is no doubt what-
ever what will happen if we hand you over to the officers.
You will be hung at Tyburn to a moral certainty. There
is no getting out of that. Now, on the other hand, you
have the alternative of making a clean breast of your deal-
ings with John Dormay, of how he put you at Lynnwood
to act as a spy, how you hid those two letters he gave you
in my father’s cabinet, and how he taught you the lying
story you afterwards told before the magistrates at Lancas-
ter. After having this story written down you will sign it
in the presence of this officer and his wife, and you will
also repeat that story before any tribunal before which you
may be brought.

“I don’t know whether this is a hanging matter, but at
any rate I can promise that you shall not be hung for it.
The Duke of Marlborough has taken the matter in hand,
and will, I have no doubt, be able to obtain for you some
lesser punishment if you make a clean breast of it. I
don’t say that you will be let free; you are too dangerous
aman for that; but at any rate your punishment will not
be a heavy one—perhaps nothing worse than agreeing to
serve in the army. You understand that in that case noth-
ing whatever will be said as to your being Dick Cureton
or of your connection with these last coach robberies.
You will appear before the court simply as Robert Nichol-
son, who, having met Captain Jervoise and myself, felt