220 MASTER SKYLARK

There was a surly muttering in the crowd. Carew
threw his head back haughtily and set his knuckles to his
hip. “A pack of rogues, I say,” he repeated sharply;
“and a fig for the whole pack!” There was a certain
wildness in his eyes. No one stirred or made reply.

“Good! Gaston,” laughed the stranger, with a shrug;
“picking thy company still, I see, for quantity, and not
for quality. No, thank ’e; none of the tap for me. My
Lord Hunsdon was made chamberlain in his father’s stead
to-day, and I’m off hot-foot with the news to Will’s.”

He gathered his cloak about him, and was gone.

“Ye ’ve lost,” said the man who was dicing with Carew.

Nick stepped down from the tap-room door. His ears
were tingling with the sound: “I’m off hot-foot with the
news to Will’s.”

“ Hot-foot with the news to Will’s”?

To “Wills”? “Will” who?

The man was a player, by his air.

Nick hurriedly looked around. Carew’s wild eyes were
frozen upon the dice. The bandy-legged man was drink-
ing at a table near the door. The crimson ribbon in his
ear looked like a patch of blood.

He saw Nick looking at him, and made a horrible face.
He would have sworn likewise, but there was half a
quart of ale in his can; so he turned it up and drank in-
stead. It was along, long drink, and half his face was
buried in the pot.

When he put it down the boy was gone.