"There's no doubt that he loves us," I said dryly. "He loves us as a cat loves the mouse that it plays with. If we are to start at once, sir, I'll go get my horse."
"Then meet us at the neck of land," said Rolfe.
I nodded, and left the room. As I descended the steps into the growing light outside, I found Master Pory at my side.
"I kept late hours last night," he remarked, with a portentous yawn. "Now that this business is settled, I'll go back to bed."
I walked on in silence.
"I am in your black books," he continued, with his sly, merry, sidelong glance. "You think that I was overcareful of the ground, that morning behind the church, and so unfortunately delayed matters until the Governor happened by and brought things to another guess conclusion."
"I think that you warned the Governor," I said bluntly.
He shook with laughter. "Warned him? Of course I warned him. Youth would never have seen that molehill and fairy ring and projecting root, but wisdom cometh with gray hairs, my son. D' ye not think I'll have the King's thanks?"
"Doubtless," I answered. "An the price contents you, I do not know why I should quarrel with it."
By this we were halfway down the street, and we now came upon the guest house. A window above us was unshuttered, and in the room within a light still burned. Suddenly it was extinguished. A man's face looked down upon us for a moment, then drew back; a skeleton hand was put out softly and slowly, and the shutter drawn to. Hand and face belonged to the man I had sent tumbling among the graves the evening before.
"The Italian doctor," said Master Pory.
There was something peculiar in his tone. I glanced at him, but his broad red face and twinkling eyes told me nothing. "The Italian doctor," he repeated. "If I had a friend in Captain Percy's predicament, I should bid him beware of the Italian doctor."
"Your friend would be obliged for the warning," I replied.
We walked a little further. "And I think," he said, "that I should inform this purely hypothetical friend of mine that the Italian and his patron had their heads mighty close together, last night."
"Last night?"
"Ay, last night. I went to drink with my lord, and so broke up their tete-a-tete. My lord was boisterous in his cups and not oversecret. He dropped some hints"--He broke off to indulge in one of his endless silent laughs. "I don't know why I tell you this, Captain Percy. I am on the other side, you know,--quite on the other side. But now I bethink me, I am only telling you what I should tell you were I upon your side. There's no harm in that, I hope, no disloyalty to my Lord Carnal's interests which happen to be my interests?"