intoxication. I on my part thought it prudent to intrust him
unreservedly with our situation and purposes, not omitting our gloomy
suspicions. Ratcliffe looked, with a pity that won my love, upon the
poor wasted Agnes. He had seen her on her first entrance into the
prison, had spoken to her, and therefore knew _from_ what she had
fallen, _to_ what. Even then he had felt for her; how much more at
this time, when he beheld, by the fierce light of the torches, her wo-
worn features!

'Who was it,' he asked eagerly, 'you made the bargain with? Manasseh?'

'The same.'

'Then I can tell you this--not a greater villain walks the earth. He is
a Jew from Portugal; he has betrayed many a man, and will many another,
unless he gets his own neck stretched, which might happen, if I told
all I know.'

'But what was it probable that this man meditated? Or how could it
profit him to betray us?'

'That's more than I can tell. He wants to get your money, and that he
doesn't know how to bring about without doing his part. But that's what
he never _will_ do, take my word for it. That would cut him out of
all chance for the head-jailer's place.' He mused a little, and then
told us that he could himself put us outside the prison walls, and
_would_ do it without fee or reward. 'But we must be quiet, or
that devil will bethink him of me. I'll wager something he thought that
I was out merry-making like the rest; and if he should chance to light
upon the truth, he'll be back in no time.' Ratcliffe then removed an