THE OATH—NED WARBECK IS ARRESTED FOR MURDER.
When Captain Jack had run himself out of breath, and had come to a
dead standstill from sheer exhaustion, he leaned against a lamp-post,
and, puffing and blowing, began to think what he had better do.
“What the devil must I do?” he mused. “I know not which way to go,
or what to be up to. If I attempt to rob Colonel Blood to get money,
the chances are ten to one I shall get a pistol ball in my head, or a
sword through my side. If I do _not_ get the money, why, then, those
grim devils will skin me alive. Then I have to arrest Ned Warbeck,
not an easy matter, for he has hosts of friends who would fight to
the last for him.”
“Yet something must be done, and quickly,” he thought; “for though I
have run away from that cursed house as fast as my legs would let me,
I have no doubt that I am watched already, and followed about like a
shadow.”
While he thus thought, a drunken man knocked against him.
“Hulloa, where are you going to?” said Captain Jack, feeling desirous
of drawing his sword, and taking revenge upon somebody for the sad
adventures of the night.
“Hulloa, where are you going to?”
“Where are you going to?” was the reply; “don’t you know a gentleman
when you see one?”
“I do; but you are not one.”
“You seem to know me then.”
“I do—it’s Black Ben.”
“Right you are; and you are the noble Captain Jack?”
“I am.”
“I thought so; and if it’s a fair question, what are you up to so
early in the morning?”
“I am on the road to the devil, Ben.”
“I don’t understand, captain.”
“I am on my way to old Sir Richard Warbeck’s house.”
“What for?”
“You would never guess.”
“Perhaps not; what for, then?”
“To arrest young Ned Warbeck on the charge of murder.”
“You don’t mean that!”
“I do though; he is innocent of the charge it is true, Ben, but still
he must suffer for old Bertram’s murder.”
“Why, you have arrested two on the charge before.”
“True; but old Redgill’s clerk, Mr. Bolton, is innocent. He is out of
prison, and Phillip Redgill has broken jail.”
“Broken jail! it’s the first I have heard about it.”
“That may be; but it is true for all that. I have been in the hands
of Death-wing and his band all night, and have sworn on my life to
have Ned Warbeck hung, in order to save myself; for old Gingles you
spoke of turned out to be no other than Death-wing. I lost all my
money at cards, and was afterwards entrapped into their den, and
swore a solemn oath, to do this, or would have been killed on the
spot.”
“But you will not keep your promise now that you are free.”
“I must.”
“Remember your oath,” said a distant voice.