NED WARBECK AND BOB BERTRAM HAVE AN INTERVIEW WITH CAPTAIN JACK AND
OLD BATES IN PRISON—ASTOUNDING REVELATIONS OF DEEDS OF CRIME.
Captain Jack and Bates wrote long accounts of their career in crime
which greatly startled the pious old chaplain who attended them daily.
There was only one request which either Captain Jack or Bates
desired, and this was to have a final and a parting interview with
Ned Warbeck and Bob Bertram.
This request was, of course, immediately granted, and, at an early
hour, Ned and Bob Bertram entered the prison cell wherein Jack and
Bates were chained and manacled.
“I have sent for you, Ned Warbeck, to say a few words before I die.”
“Then unburden your conscience, Jack,” said Ned, “and, in order that
what you say may be made public hereafter, I have brought a quick
writer with me, who will put down on paper all you say.”
“I have no objection in the world,” said Jack.
“Nor I,” said Bates, in a surly tone.
“Then let me, in the first place ask, why did you arrest young
Bolton, old Redgill’s travelling collector for?”
“So as to screen Phillip Redgill, who gave me several thousand pounds
to shift the guilt from his own shoulders to that of some one else.”
“Oh, the villain!” said Bob.
“But why did you still screen him when you knew that he had dealings
with Death-wing and his villanous Skeleton Crew?”
“Because I knew if I arrested him, he might give evidence against
me in turn; for I know, and have long known, that Colonel Blood was
only waiting an opportunity to hang me—before my time,” said Jack,
laughing.
“How can you account for his father’s death?”
“Why, he upset the carriage, and thus drowned him; but instead of
getting any property, the old man was insolvent, and not worth a
penny.”
“And what became of his wife?”
“She lived for some time with Mr. Augustus Fumbleton, and kept a
house of ill-fame. Her father, old McTurk, however, did not disdain
to receive money from her, but ultimately the house was accidentally
burnt to the ground, and Fanny, young Redgill’s wife, was as the same
time consumed in the flames.”
“And what became of old McTurk?”
“He went to the workhouse, and there lingers out a wretched life. His
wife is dead, and he himself is like a walking skeleton.”
“And do you know how it was that my brother, Charley, got into such
disgrace at the Indian house?”
“Yes. Phillip Redgill told me all one night when drunk, and seemed to
glory in it.”
“What did he say?”
“Why, that he stole the notes, and lost them that same night in
gambling.”
“He must have been an unscrupulous, inconceivable villain! But he is
dead, I hear,” said Ned.
“No, he is not,” said Jack; “but if he doesn’t die, I have written
down and sworn to more than enough to gibbet him.”
“And are you content to die?” asked Bob, in great surprise at the
coolness of Jack and Bates.
“I must be so,” was the reply. “We have had Gibbet in our eye for
more than fifteen years, and surely now that the time’s come, we are
men enough to face it.”
“Perhaps ’tis well that society is about to get rid of you?” said Ned.
_THIS TALE WILL CONCLUDE IN No. 24_,
With which Number will be presented
NUMBERS 1 & 2 OF A NEW WORK.
* * * * *
“Perhaps it is. We have had a long and successful run of it; but if
we had lived a little longer, I have no doubt we should have made
ourselves more famous than we are.”
“Infamous, you should have said,” remarked Ned.
“Well, just as you please to word it; it is of little consequence to
us now, eh, Bates?”
“Not a particle, as I can see. So they lets us spend all our money in
drink and grub, I don’t care what they do with us afterwards.”
“And cannot this Blood be brought to justice?” asked Ned, in a
whisper.
“I think not, Ned Warbeck,” said Captain Jack; “he’s a bigger
villain than any of the ‘Dozen’ ever were; but, you see, his case is
different; he’s a great rogue, and tried to steal the crown jewels
out of the Tower, and everybody thought he would have suffered on the
block; but, instead of that, the king not only pardons him, but gives
him a handsome pension into the bargain.”
“He is a desperate scoundrel,” growled Ned.
“Yes; and for that very reason I’d advise you to have as little to do
with him as possible, for when one is a king’s favourite every one
must smile upon him if they wish to live in peace and quietness.”
“Good advice,” said Bates, “very, and if the young gentleman follows
it, he will do well, and enjoy the title and riches, which, as the
descendant of the once famous Edward Lawrence, he will be sure to
receive from his natural guardian—old Sir Richard Warbeck.”
“What mean you?” said Ned, in surprise.
“I mean what I say.”
“How know you this?”
“Phillip Redgill once asked us to go down to Darlington Hall to rob
it.”
“No.”
“’Tis true every word, my brave lad.”
“You surprise me.”
“Well, while we were there, I and Jack pulled about the old knight’s
papers and parchments, while the Skeleton Crew were fighting and
hanging the servants, and so drank good wine in the library, and read
the family papers.”
“And was it Phillip Redgill who planned that attack?”
“Yes, and no other.”
“No wonder, then, that I always instinctively hated him,” said Ned.
“You two were as different as fire and water. Phillip Redgill planned
your murder once or twice.”
“I know he did.”
“But you had a charmed life, Ned,” said Jack, “and no one can harm
you; all the gipsies and weird women on the Cornish coast have said
so.”
“Oh, yes, no doubt about that,” said old Bates. “Ned Warbeck must
have as many lives as a cat, or he would have been killed long and
long enough ago.”
“Can you account for the fact that my father was found with his legs
cut off,” said Bob Bertram.
“Yes. When Phillip Redgill murdered him, he ‘limbed’ the poor old man
to get the bank notes which he heard your father had sewn up in his
leather leggings.”
“The infamous scoundrel! the barbarian!” swore Bob, in a great rage.
“But he’s paid out for that bit of butchery, long ago,” said Jack,
“for he has confessed it.”
“How? In what way?”—
“The phantom legs of old Farmer Bertram follows him both night and
day.”
“Follows him?” said Ned, aghast with horror.
“Yes, follows him; at certain times and on particular occasions they
are visible to him, and to others also. _I_ saw them once.”
“You?”
“Yes; but I never want to look at them any more,” said Captain Jack,
shrugging up his shoulders, “for it is a most awful sight.”
“When did this happen?”
“The very night he, and I, and old Bates were secreted in the library
at Darlington Hall.”
“Aye, true,” said old Bates, with chattering teeth, “and when they
walked on to the table right afore us, with their gory tops and
stumps, an awful voice was heard; but I was too horror-struck to
remember what was said.”
“But I did though,” said Jack.
“And what were the words,” said Ned and Bob Bertram, both at once.
“Why, the legs walked across the table, and stood right before Phil
Redgill, and some awful voice said,
“‘Phillip Redgill, I will follow you for ever!’
“Awful!” said Ned. “It was a judgment of heaven!”
“Whether it was or not, we didn’t stop to see any more, but made our
exit as quickly as possible.”
“And that was the only thing that prevented us destroying all the old
gentleman’s family papers,” said Bites. “If it hadn’t been for that,
we had all things ready to set fire to the library and the whole
mansion.”
Much more was revealed to Ned Warbeck and Bob Bertram by Jack and
Bates than we have room for in this concluding number of the Skeleton
Crew; but what else happened after the gibbeting of the Baker’s
Dozen, and their two notorious leaders, will appear in the next
chapter.