Then Jack Battle, the sailor lad from no one knows where,
living no one knows how, digs his bare toes into the sand and asks
under his breath if we have heard about king-killers.
"What are king-killers?" demands young Gillam.
I discreetly hold my tongue; for a gentleman who supped late with my
uncle one night has strangely disappeared, and the rats in the attic
have grown boldly loud.
"What are king-killers?" asks Gillam.
"Them as sent Charles I to his death," explains Jack. "They do say,"
he whispers fearfully, "one o' them is hid hereabouts now! The king's
commission hath ordered to have hounds and Indians run him down."
"Pah!" says Gillam, making little of what he had not known, "hounds are
only for run-aways," this with a sneering look at odd marks round
Jack's wrists.
"I am no slave!" vows Jack in crestfallen tones.
"Who said 'slave'?" laughs Gillam triumphantly. "My father saith he is
a runaway rat from the Barbadoes," adds Ben to me.
With the fear of a hunted animal under his shaggy brows, little Jack
tries to read how much is guess.
"I am no slave, Ben Gillam," he flings back at hazard; but his voice is
thin from fright.
"My father saith some planter hath lost ten pound on thee, little
slavie," continues Ben.
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