that fetches us to your part in it, Sir Frank; and to yours, Mr. Stair.
Your troop, Captain, will be the convoy for this powder; and you, Mr.
Stair, are requisitioned to provide the commissary."

There was silence while a cat might wink, and then Gilbert Stair broke
in upon it shrilly.

"I can not, Captain Stuart; that I can not!" he protested, starting from
his chair. "'Twill ruin me outright! The place is stripped,--you know it
well, Sir Francis,--stripped bare and clean by these thieving rebel
militia-men; bare as the back of your hand, I tell you! I--"

But the captain put him down in brief.

"Enough, Mr. Stair; we'll not constrain you against your will. But 'tis
hinted at headquarters that you are but a fair-weather royalist at
best--nay, that for some years back you have been as rebel as the rest
in this nesting-place of traitors. As a friend--mind you, as a friend--I
would advise you to find the wherewithal to carry out my Lord's
commands. Do you take me, Mr. Stair?"

The trembling old man fell back in his chair, nodding his "yes" dumbly
like a marionette when the string has been jerked a thought too
violently, and his weasel face was moist and clammy. I know not what
double-dealing he would have been at before this, but it was surely
something with the promise of a rope at the publishing of it.

So he and his factor fell to ciphering on a bit of paper, reckoning ways
and means, as I took it, while Falconnet was asking for more particular
orders.