dagger. "Stop!" he said. "He swallows his beads."

'"Poison, belike," said De Aquila. "It is good for men who know too
much. I have carried it these thirty years. Give me!"

'Then Gilbert wept and howled. De Aquila ran the beads through his
fingers. The last one--I have said they were large nuts--opened in two
halves on a pin, and there was a small folded parchment within. On it
was written: "_The Old Dog goes to Salisbury to be beaten. I have his
Kennel. Come quickly_."

'"This is worse than poison," said De Aquila, very softly, and sucked in
his cheeks. Then Gilbert grovelled in the rushes, and told us all he
knew. The letter, as we guessed, was from Fulke to the Duke (and not the
first that had passed between them); Fulke had given it to Gilbert in
the chapel, and Gilbert thought to have taken it by morning to a certain
fishing boat at the wharf, which trafficked between Pevensey and the
French shore. Gilbert was a false fellow, but he found time between his
quakings and shakings to swear that the master of the boat knew nothing
of the matter.

'"He hath called me shaved head," said Gilbert, "and he hath thrown
haddock-guts at me; but for all that, he is no traitor."

'"I will have no clerk of mine mishandled or miscalled," said De Aquila.
"That seaman shall be whipped at his own mast. Write me first a letter,
and thou shalt bear it, with the order for the whipping, to-morrow to
the boat."

'At this Gilbert would have kissed De Aquila's hand--he had not hoped to