"How long have I been here?"
"Mebbe the quarter of an hour."
"Ah! so long? And which way ran this villain?"
"Ran? 'Twere no running, zur," replied Dan Ratlaw. "He flew! Yea, as I
live, he sailed above yon bushes like a bat. And may I be clean
drownded, zur," he added in an awful whisper, "if blazing fire did not
drop from en as he flew."