Page 193 - A Jacobite Exile

"You would need to fly, in truth, to get beyond Ben Soloman's clutches,"
the charcoal burner said gruffly. "He has got agents all over the country."

"Then what would you do?"

"There is only one thing to do. It is our lives or his. When he rides up
tomorrow, we will meet him at the door as if nothing had happened, and,

with my axe, I will cleave his head asunder as he comes in. If he sees me in
time to retreat, you shall stab him in the back. Then we will dig a big hole

in the wood, and throw him in, and we will kill his horse and bury it with
him.

"Who would ever be the wiser? I was going to propose it last time, only I
was not sure of you then; but, now that you are in it as deep as I

am--deeper, indeed, for he put you here specially to look after this
youngster--your interest in the matter is as great as mine."

The Jew was silent for some time, then he said:

"He has got papers at home which would bring me to the gallows."

"Pooh!" the other said. "You do not suppose that, when it is found that he

does not return, and his heirs open his coffers, they will take any trouble
about what there may be in the papers there, except such as relate to his

money. I will warrant there are papers there which concern scores of men
besides you, for I know that Ben Soloman likes to work with agents he has
got under his thumb. But, even if all the papers should be put into the hands

of the authorities, what would come of it? They have got their hands full of
other matters, for the present, and with the Swedes on their frontier, and the

whole country divided into factions, who do you think is going to trouble to
hunt up men for affairs that occurred years ago? Even if they did, they
would not catch you. They have not got the means of running you down

that Ben Soloman has.

"I tell you, man, it must be done. There is no other way out of it."