The Pressed Men

Simon Hyde sat on the grassy slope as the sun rose in the eastern sky, looking down at the charred ruins of the house where the murderers of his family lay dead â€" the result of another long and bloody night of violence. Behind him, Sergeant Jones stepped forward, clicked back the hammer of the musket he was holding, then lowered its muzzle to rest against the nape of Hyde’s neck. ‘Simon Hyde, I arrest you in the name of His Britannic Majesty King George the Second,’ he announced. ‘Get up; stay the way you’re facing, and raise your hands in the air.’ Hyde did as he was told and struggled to his feet, still feeling the end of the musket barrel pushing against his skin, and what had looked like just the end of another chapter in the story of his life began to look as though it might be the end of the entire book. But was Jones what he presented himself to be, a loyal soldier of the King, or was he the paid henchman of the two men lying dead in the wreckage of the house in the valley bottom? Either way it seemed of little import to Hyde; the only unknown for him being the way in which he must now die â€" by hanging as a common murderer, or when Jones pulled back on the trigger to release the hammer of the musket . . . . . The Pressed Men is the third Simon Hyde story in the series, and sequel to The Storm Chaser