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That house you have most cleverly divided against itself; and it must fall it is tottering now, shaken to its foundations of centuries. Also, I have the pleasure to refer to your capture of the man Beacraft and his papers, disclosing a diabolical plan of murder. The man has been condemned by a court on the evidence as it stood, and he is now awaiting execution.
The paper was signed by Uriah Beacraft. After a few moments I folded this carefully prepared plan for deliberate and wholesale murder and placed it in my wallet. Sir George looked up at me with a question in his eyes. I nodded, saying: "We have enough to arrest Beacraft. If you cannot persuade Magdalen Brant, we must arrest her, too. You had best use all your art, Sir George."
"My friends and I thought we'd just drop around. Ain't you glad, Beacraft, old buck?" "Not very," said Beacraft. "Not very!" echoed Mount, in apparent dismay and sorrow. "Ain't you enj'yin' good health, Beacraft?" "I'm well, but I'm busy," said the man, slowly. "So are we, so are we," cried Mount, with a brisk laugh.
I broke the wax of the second despatch; it was from Harrow, briefly thanking me for the capture of Beacraft, adding that the man had been sent to Albany to await court-martial. That meant that Beacraft must hang; a most disagreeable feeling came over me, and I tore open the third and last paper, a bulky document, and read it: "VARICK MANOR, "June the 2d. "An hour to dawn.
The fire needed mending and I used the bellows. And, as I knelt there on the hearth, I saw a milky white stain slowly spread over the finger which I had dipped into the ink-horn. I walked to the door and stood in the cool morning air. Slowly the white stain disappeared. "Mount," I said, sharply, "you and Murphy and Beacraft will eat your breakfast at once and be quick about it."
"A King's man," repeated Mount, cordially, rubbing his hands at the smouldering fire and looking around in apparent satisfaction. "A King's man; what the nasty rebels call a 'Tory, gentlemen. My! Ain't this nice to be all together so friendly and cosey with my old friend Beacraft? Who's visitin' ye, Beacraft? Anybody sleepin' up-stairs, old friend?"
Beacraft sprang up, glaring at me out of bloodshot eyes. "Shoot him if he breaks away," I added. From his convulsed and distorted lips a torrent of profanity burst as Murphy laid a heavy hand on his shoulder and faced him eastward. I drew the blue paper from my wallet, whispered to Murphy, and handed it to him.
I picked up an ink-horn, sniffed it, and spilled a drop of the fluid on my finger. The fluid left no stain, but the odor I had noticed certainly came from it. I folded the paper and placed it in my beaded pouch, then descended the stairs, to find Mount stirring the corn-bread and Sir George laying a cloth over the kitchen table, while Beacraft sat moodily by the window, watching everybody askance.
He shoved it inside the breast of his hunting-shirt, cocked his rifle, and tapped Beacraft on the arm. So they marched away across the sunlit pasture, where blackbirds walked among the cattle, and the dew sparkled in tinted drops of fire. In all my horror of the man I pitied him, for I knew he was going to his death, there through the fresh, sweet morning, under the blue heavens.
"Sorr," he replied, letting go of Mount and standing at a respectful slouch. "Did you get Beacraft there in safety?" "I did, sorr." "Any trouble?" "None, sorr f'r me." I opened the first despatch, looking at him keenly. "Do we take the war-path?" I asked. "We do, sorr," he said, blandly. "McDonald's in the hills wid the McCraw an'ten score renegades.
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