"Nay Sir, there is yet more. This letter, which is come to one of us in
cypher, goes on to tell that it hath been heard, from a very good
source, that the chief mover herein is to be made Duke and Peer of
France, and receive 200,000 pistoles, for which he is to deliver up not
Jersey only but Guernsey, Aurigny, and Serk. Nay, further, his Eminence
Cardinal Mazarine hath taken up ships for the transport of 2,000 French
soldiers, nominally for the service of your Majesty, actually for the
service whereof we are now speaking."

"Let them come," said Charles. "We will put ourself at their head and
fall upon Guernsey, that nest of Roundheads where Osborne and honest
Baldwin Wake have borne so long the brunt of insult and privation."

"Under your favour, Sir," broke in Carteret, "you would be bubbled. I
have seen and spoke with a known creature of my Lord Jermyn's; and I
know well that the design of the French is--so to speak--to clap your
Majesty under the hatches, and to steer the vessel on their own account.
Mr. La Cloche shall answer for this," he added in a lower tone.

"By your leave again, Sir George," put in the beaming Secretary, "we
lawyers are to speak by our calling. It is not indeed, Sir, that my Lord
Jermyn hath made direct overtures to us. And 'tis to be thought that in
this last respect the messenger spoke but according to his own
understanding."

"I would cut every throat in the island," cried Carteret, with savage
interruption....

"Sir George Cartwright's zeal hath eaten him up," said Nicholas with a
twinkle of his merry eye. "Let it suffice that the concurrent