Parties of the royalist army were moving in every direction round
Hull, and from time to time saker and falconet, and such other
artillery as the garrison had been able to muster on the walls, were
discharged at the adventurous Cavaliers who approached too near, when
Mr. Dry, of Longsoaken, having been permitted by the guard who had him
in charge to gather his baggage hastily together at the "Swan," and to
saddle his horse, issued forth from the gates, leaving behind him, in
the hands of Mrs. White, in part payment of his bill, the horse on
which Arrah Neil had ridden thither. Not that Mr. Dry had come
unprovided with the needful means of meeting any expenses he might
incur; far from it, for he was a wealthy man, and for many years had
never known what even temporary want was; but he loved barter, and
generally gained by; and though he was indeed obliged to dispose of
the nag to the good landlady at a loss, yet this loss, as he contrived
it, was less than would have been incurred by any other process.
However, when he stood without the gates and saw them closed behind
him; when he beheld, wherever he turned, some body of horse or foot at
the distance of less than a mile: and, more than all, when he heard a
cannon boom over his head from above, the heart of Mr. Dry, of
Longsoaken, sank, and he felt a degree of trepidation he had never
known in life before. What to do he could not tell; but after much
deliberation he resolved to stay where he was till the royalist troops
were withdrawn, calculating justly that they would not approach so
near as to do him any harm, and that the troops within would not issue
forth while the others were in sight.
One point, indeed, he did not foresee. The Earl of Beverley and
Colonel Ashburnham had passed out while he was at the inn, but the
redoubtable Captain Barecolt was still behind; and, as the evil fate
of Mr. Dry would have it, just after he had remained under shelter of
the archway to one hour and a quarter by the great clock, holding his
horse by the bridle all the time, the gate behind him suddenly began
to clank and rattle in the painful operation of giving exit to that
great hero.
Mr. Dry started up and looked behind him, lifting his foot towards the
stirrup at the same moment; and as soon as he beheld Captain Barecolt,
he scrambled into the saddle as well as he could; but, alas! that
renowned officer was already mounted, and Mr. Dry had to perform an
operation which was difficult to him. He had got his left foot in the
stirrup; he had swung himself up into the saddle; but before his right
foot could find its place of repose (and Mr. Dry did not venture to
spur on till it had), the gates were closed behind Captain Barecolt,
and he himself was by the Puritan's side.
"Ha, ha! old drybones!" said that officer, "have I caught thee at
length?"
"What want you with me, man of Belial?" demanded the master of
Longsoaken, with the cat-in-a-corner courage of despair. "Get you gone
upon your way, and let better men than yourself follow theirs."
"Nay, good faith!" answered Barecolt, stretching out his left hand and
grasping Mr. Dry's rein: "I always love that better men than myself
should bear me company, and such is to be thy fate, O Dry! so do not
think to escape it; for, as sure as my name is de Capitaine Jersval,
if you attempt any one of all those running tricks which you know so
well how to practice, I will slit your weasand incontinent. It matters
not two straws to me whether I have you alive or dead, but have your
corpus I will, as the prisoner of my bow and spear, as you would call
it. Come, use your spurs, or I must spur your beast for you. You see
that party of honest Cavaliers there on the hill--terrible malignants,
every one of them, that would have a pleasure in roasting you by a
slow fire, like a tough old goose, and basting you with those strong
waters that you love so well. To them we are going, so spur on with
the alacrity which your good luck deserves. What! you will not? Oh,
then, I must make you!" and drawing his sword, he pricked Mr. Dry's
horse so close to that worthy gentleman's thigh, that he started and
rose in the stirrups.
The poor beast darted on in an instant, and in so doing shook Mr. Dry
a good deal; but whether the concussion elicited a brilliant thought
from his brain or not, he exclaimed immediately after--
"Harkye, Captain Barecolt! I have a word for ye. Do not let us ride so
fast. I have an offer to make. Listen a moment."
Mr. Dry understood the peculiar genus of captain to which Barecolt
belonged, but he did not understand the exact variety. He knew that,
with most adventurous soldiers like himself, the food for which they
hungered was gold. Drink might do much, dice might do much, fair
ladies might do more; but gold, gold was paramount--an attraction not
to be resisted. Mr. Dry loved gold, too, and overvalued its
importance; but he felt a strong internal conviction that, if carried
at once to the quarters of Lord Walton, life, which was the grand
means of getting and enjoying gold, would be of a very short duration.
He saw a noose dangling from a cross-tree before his eyes, and he
wisely calculated that it would be better to sacrifice some portion of
the less valuable commodity to save the more valuable; and therefore
he prepared to tempt his companion's cupidity--not without a faint
hope of cheating him after all, but with the resolution of giving
anything that might save his life.
A sudden thought, too, had struck Captain Barecolt, which he proceeded
to follow out, as will be seen presently; but its first effect was to
make him draw in his rein, and also check the horse of Mr. Dry, over
which he exercised supreme command; and as he did so, he said in a dry
and bantering tone--
"Well, worshipful Mr. Dry, speak what you have to speak. As you will
not have leisure to use your tongue much more on earth, it would be
hard to deny you a few words. You are going to the gallows, Mr.
Dry--you are going to the gallows; and though I cannot promise that
you shall swing as high as Haman, yet you shall have as decent an
execution as time and circumstances permit, and plenty of room for
your feet.
"Nay," said Dry, with a sort of sobbing sigh, "you would not be so
barbarous, so unchristian, especially when I am willing to pay ransom.
Listen, captain--listen, noble Captain Barecolt: if you will not take
me and put me into the hands of yonder men of Belial, I will--I will
go as far as a hundred pounds."
"Men of Belial, sirrah!" cried Barecolt, turning upon him fiercely.
"How dare you call his majesty's forces men of Belial. Those very
words shall cost you five hundred pounds, if you would save your
life."
Though the captain's words were fierce, yet they served to show that
he was not quite inaccessible, and Mr. Dry began at once to higgle
about his ransom; but Barecolt showed himself as hard a bargainer as
he was himself; and as he perceived that every step they took in
advance increased the trepidation of the worthy man of Longsoaken, he
used the screw thus afforded him to squeeze Mr. Dry very painfully.
Now he pushed on his horse--now he slackened his pace--now he pointed
out a party of Cavaliers approaching very near; and, discovering
exactly what Mr. Dry had upon his person, he took care to make his
demand much more, in order that he might have the opportunity of
keeping him in his hands till the sum was paid, which was indeed the
principal object he had in view.
Some difficulties, totally independent of Mr. Dry's natural reluctance
to part with his money, even to save his life, occurred in the course
of the negotiation. Barecolt was well aware, from what he had seen of
the king's conduct, that if the prisoner were taken to the camp,
instead of mounting a ladder, he would more likely regain his liberty
very speedily; and the worthy Puritan, on the contrary, was terrified
at the very thought of approaching the royal quarters, his
consciousness of offences grave and manifold presenting instant death
to his imagination as the only result. What then was to be done with
him while he remained in the custody of Captain Barecolt? That valiant
gentleman proposed that he should assume a false name, and pass as a
friend of his in the camp; but Mr. Dry, remembering that he was known
to many in Lord Walton's troop, rejected this idea as totally
inconsistent with his own safety.
"You might as well hang me at once," he said.
"That might be pleasant enough," answered Barecolt, "were it not that
you have only a hundred and fifty pounds about you, Master Dry.
However, let me see: if we take this little hollow way to the left,
methinks it will lead us to the hamlet just below the old church. I
could stow you away in that building, as a young friend of mine was
once served by some of your people, while I send for some of my own
men to keep guard over you, and I go and report myself."
"No, not there! not there!" cried he of Longsoaken, turning paler than
ever. "No, no! But there is an alehouse farther on, where we could find
accommodation. They are good and pious people there."
"For which reason I will have nothing to do with them," answered the
profane captain. "No, but I know of a tavern just a mile from
Beverley, where you can be lodged safely, Mr. Dry; and as, if you are
taken and hanged, I lose five hundred good pounds, you may be quite
sure that I will take as much pains to keep your neck out of the
halter as I will to guard against your escape. We will talk about the
means of getting the money from Bishop's Merton hereafter; so now come
on quick. We shall turn the flank of that party we saw upon the hill
in five minutes, without their seeing us, if we keep in the hollow
way; and should we meet any stragglers, you must either keep a silent
tongue in your head or curse and swear like a trooper."
"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Mr. Dry, turning up his eyes.
"Phoo!" cried Captain Barecolt, "I know you would trample on the cross
as the Dutchmen do in Japan, to save your life;" and after the
assertion of this undeniable fact he hurried forward, nor drew a rein
till they reached the village, and the inn which he had mentioned.
They found three or four of the inferior followers of the court in
possession of the public-house; but, though two of them were known to
the politic captain, they were not personages whom he chose to trust;
and, conveying Mr. Dry to an upper room, he bestowed a small piece of
silver upon one of the boys of the place, to run up to Beverley and
bring down one Corporal Curtis from his troop. In the mean while, he
informed Mr. Dry that it would be as well if he would give up into his
secure keeping, to be duly accounted for at an after period, all his
worldly goods and chattels, including his tawny-sheathed steel-mounted
sword; and, though that worshipful person submitted with but an ill
grace to the law of necessity, the pitiless captain employed very
searching measures to ascertain that he retained nothing, either on
his person or in his saddle-bags, but a decent change of apparel. When
this was done, as Corporal Curtis had not yet appeared, Captain
Barecolt called for a pottle of good wine, the cost of which he
disbursed from Mr. Dry's store, noting it carefully down in a small,
dirty memorandum-book, as he sagely remarked that he would have to
reckon with that gentleman when they parted. The last cup was in the
pottle-pot, and the gallant officer was seriously thinking of calling
for more, when a tall, athletic man was ushered in, having some
resemblance to Barecolt himself, into whose hands the captain
consigned Mr. Dry, with a positive and loud injunction not to lose
sight of him even for a moment, and to shoot him through the head if
he attempted to escape.
Corporal Curtis promised to obey, saying drily, with a nod at their
companion, that he remembered the march from Bishop's Merton; and
Barecolt, leaving him in such good hands, mounted his horse and rode
off to Beverley. He was kept there for many hours before he could
obtain a private audience of Lord Walton; but at the end of that
period he was closeted with the young nobleman for a long time, and
when their conference was at an end they walked away together to the
quarters of Major Randal, where another long private conversation took
place. What passed might be difficult as well as tedious to tell; but
in the end, towards five o'clock of the afternoon, Captain Barecolt
returned to the village, where he had left his captive, accompanied by
two stout troopers selected by himself from his own troop; and
ascending to the chamber of Mr. Dry, he announced to him, in a tone
that admitted of no reply, that he must mount and accompany him at
once towards Bishop's Merton.
"I have determined, most worshipful sir," he said, as soon as he had
sent Corporal Curtis out of the room, "to see you safe on your way
till we are within half-a-day's march of Longsoaken. You will then
have the goodness to give an order for the payment of your ransom to
one of my friends, who will rejoin us when he has received it, and
then I will set you free."
"How do I know you will do that?" demanded Dry, of Longsoaken, in a
sullen tone.
"By making use of your common sense, Mr. Dry," replied Captain
Barecolt. "Could I not hang you now if I liked it? Can I not hang you
now if it pleases me? Will I not hang you now if you affect to doubt
the honour of a gentleman and a soldier? So no more on that score, but
descend, mount, and march--as you needs must."
There was no remedy And Mr. Dry obeyed, with vague hopes indeed of
making his escape by some fortunate accident on the way. He argued
that, in the distracted state of the country, it was barely possible
for Captain Barecolt to pass across a great part of England without
either encountering some force of the opposite party or pausing in
some town which had espoused the parliamentary cause, and he believed
that in either case his liberation must take place. But he little knew
the forethought of that great stratagetic mind. Barecolt had furnished
himself with correct information regarding the views and feelings of
all the places he had to pass; and, instead of taking his way by
Coventry and Worcester, he led his little troop direct to Nottingham,
Derby, and Shrewsbury, almost in the same course that the king
followed shortly after; and at every halting-place Mr. Dry found
himself so strictly watched that his hopes declined from hour to hour.
He was never left alone, even for a moment, Captain Barecolt himself,
or one of the three soldiers who accompanied him, remaining with him
night and day. The only chance that seemed left was in meeting with
some friends as the party approached Bishop's Merton; but when Mr. Dry
remembered that he was totally unarmed, his heart, never the most firm
or most daring, felt inconceivably low at the thought of a struggle;
and the sanguinary and ferocious conversation of his captor, the list
of slain that his arm had sent to their long account, the bloody
battles he had seen, and the dire deeds he had done, made him tremble
for the result of any attempt to escape.
At length familiar objects began to greet the eyes of Mr. Dry. He saw
places and things which he had often seen before, and knew that he
must be within one day's journey of Bishop's Merton; and the very
feeling revived in some degree his fainting courage. "Surely," he
thought, "the people here must have retained their devotion to the
good cause." But, alas! as he rode one morning into a town where he
had often bought and sold, he beheld a party of Lord Hertford's horse
sitting jesting with the girls in the market-place; and the
conversation which he heard as he went along showed him that times had
changed, and that people had changed with them.
On leading him up, as had been the inviolable custom since they set
out, to a high room in the inn, Captain Barecolt, with a stern tone
and countenance, told Corporal Curtis to set a soldier at the door,
and to suffer no one to enter. Then waving his captive to a seat, he
took a stool opposite, and after a solemn pause addressed him thus:--
"Now, worshipful Master Dry, doubtless you have been puzzling the
small wits that God has given you to discover how it happens that an
officer like myself, high in the king's confidence, has been induced
to traverse so great an extent of country, solely for the purpose of
receiving from a mechanical and trading person like yourself the
pitiful sum of five hundred pounds, which might have been transmitted
by various other means; and it is but fitting that you should know the
worst. I and other persons of high rank and station have been made
acquainted how, on the death of a poor old man, one Sergeant Neil, you
rifled his cottage, and possessed yourself, amongst other things, of
sundry papers appertaining to a young lady, who for some years has
gone under the name of Arrah Neil, and was supposed to be his
grand-daughter.--Don't interrupt me. Having brought you thus far, it
is necessary to tell you, that besides an order upon some wealthy man
at Bishop's Merton for the five hundred pounds before mentioned, which
I shall send on by one of my troopers, it is necessary to your safety
and liberation that you should furnish Corporal Curtis with an exact
statement of where the said papers are to be found in your house at
Longsoaken, and with an order to your people there to aid and assist
my said corporal in searching for and finding those documents,
expressly stating that you have immediate need of them--don't
interrupt me--which indeed is the exact truth; for you must know that
I have authority, under the hand of competent persons, in case you
should show any reluctance to deliver up property belonging to other
people, which you have stolen, to hang you upon the branch of a
convenient tree in Wilbury Wood, as one taken in arms in open
rebellion, otherwise in flagrant delict, worshipful Master Dry. While
dinner is getting ready, therefore, you will be good enough to think
deliberately over these particulars, and make up your mind as to
whether you will like the state of suspense at which I have hinted
better than a surrender of that which is not yours."
The varieties of hue which Mr. Dry's countenance had assumed while he
listened to this long oration cannot be described here, for the very
attempt would require us to go through almost every shade that ever
graced a painter's pallet. Captain Barecolt had three times told him
not to interrupt him, but it was a very unnecessary caution, as that
worthy gentleman was too much confounded and thunderstruck to be able
to utter a word; and when at length his captor rose, and, going to the
door, conversed with the soldier for a few minutes, he remained in a
state of impotent rage, bitterness, and disappointment, which had the
curious effect of making him bite his under lip well-nigh through with
his teeth.
Captain Barecolt was inexorable, however; the dinner was served; and
Mr. Dry, though he could with difficulty be brought to eat a mouthful,
drank a good deal. The dinner was over, and Captain Barecolt called
for writing materials, which were laid before the unfortunate Mr. Dry.
He paused, and his hand shook; but the captain was wonderfully calm
and composed. He enjoyed the operation very much.
"First, if you please, worshipful Master Dry," he said, "the order on
some responsible citizen of Bishop's Merton for five hundred pounds,
to be paid at sight; and you will be good enough to eschew the word
'ransom,' putting in that it is for your private necessities."
Mr. Dry wrote as he was directed, and then Captain Barecolt, having
examined the paper, placed another sheet before him, saying, "Now for
the order to your steward, housekeeper, and all others of your people
at Longsoaken, to aid and assist Mr. Curtis: eschew the word
'corporal,' and merely style him 'your friend'--to search for,
&c. &c."
Mr. Dry again paused, and Captain Barecolt added, "Remember, I do not
press you. I have orders not to press you. If you sign, well; we will
go on to a certain cave you know of in Wilbury Wood, where I will
keep you company till my men return, and as soon as I find that all
which is required comes safe to hand, I will instantly set you free
without let or hindrance. But if you refuse to sign, I am not to press
you--no, not in the least: I am only to hang you in Wilbury Wood as a
terror to all offenders. No, I do not press you in the least, Mr. Dry.
Act as in your judgment you shall think it expedient."
Mr. Dry took the pen once more, and with a wavering and uncertain hand
wrote down the order, very nearly in the terms which Captain Barecolt
had dictated. He then stopped a moment, dipped the pen in the ink,
gazed in the officer's face, and then added his name.
"Hal ha! ha!" cried Captain Barecolt, taking the paper with a mocking
laugh. "Here is a man who prefers giving up things that don't belong
to him to being hung in a nice cool wood. What an extraordinary
taste!" and walking to the door he put his head out, saying, "Saddle
the horses."
"Devil!" cried Mr. Dry, of Longsoaken, setting his teeth hard;
and at the same time, by a rapid but silent movement, he drew a long,
sharp-pointed knife off the table, and hastily put it in his pocket.
"Come, Mr. Dry," said Barecolt, turning round, "we shall soon part if
your people obey your orders and your correspondent pays the money; so
we may as well have another tankard to drink to our next merry
meeting. It will make but a small item in your bill. Holloa, there!
Bring another tankard, and mind it be of the best."
But when the wine came Mr. Dry refused to drink, saying sullenly that
he had had enough to quench his thirst for a week. Captain Barecolt
laughed again, for the writhing of his victim was pleasant to him; and
taking up the large jug of wine he replied, "We have not had you long
enough amongst us, Mr. Dry: you should really bear us company a little
longer, to learn to drink deep. This is the way a true _soldado_
discusses a stoup of good Bordeaux," and setting the brim to his lips,
he never took it away till the tankard was empty.
"Now, to horse! to horse!" he cried, and making Mr. Dry go down and
mount before him, he sprang lightly upon horseback, seeming all the
more brisk and active for his liquor.
After some little shaking of hands and bidding good-bye between
Captain Barecolt and his men and the troopers of Lord Hertford, in the
streets, the captain's little party rode out of the town, and were
soon in the midst of fields and lanes again. Then came a wide, bare
common, extending for three or four miles on every side; and as they
crossed it, a large old wood appeared lying straight before them, and
falling into deep waves of brown foliage, with misty dells between.
"Ay, there is old Wilbury Wood, Master Dry," said Captain Barecolt;
"you know it well, I dare say."
"You seem to know it well too," answered the Puritan, eyeing him
askance.
"To be sure I do," replied the renowned captain; "and while the men
are gone upon their errand, I will tell you how. Keep your curiosity
cool till then, Master Dry, and you shall be satisfied."
"I have no curiosity about it," growled the Puritan.
"Well, then, you shall hear, whether you have curiosity or not,"
answered the captain; and on they rode, following a somewhat lonely
and unfrequented path into the heart of the wood. The old trees rose
around them in wild groups and strange fantastic forms; the hares
bounded away in the underwood, and the squirrels, crossing the path,
ran gaily up the trees, while a jay flew on before and scolded them
from a bough overhead.
"I think this should be the turning," said the gallant captain, at
length. "Does not this lead to the cave, Master Dry?"
"Seek it yourself if you want it," said his companion.
"You are discourteous, knave!" said Barecolt, giving him a blow on the
ribs that made the worthy gentleman's breath come short. "Learn to be
civil to your betters;" and turning his horse up the path, at the
mouth of which he had stopped, he led his little party with unerring
sagacity to a high rocky promontory in the wood, in the base of which
appeared a hollow, some ten or twelve feet deep. He there dismounted
and made Mr. Dry do the same, and, seeing him safely lodged in the
cave, he gave one of the papers to Corporal Curtis, saying, "Take
Jukes with you, and do as I told you, corporal. Avoid the town, and be
back before dark; for if they do not give up the papers, I shall want
you to help to hang our friend there."
His back was turned to Master Dry; and as he uttered these words
aloud, he winked upon the corporal significantly with one small eye.
"They will obey my order," said Dry.
"I trust they will," rejoined Barecolt, solemnly. "You, James, take
this to Bishop's Merton, and get the money. You may tell Master
Winkfield, on whom it is drawn, that Master Dry wants it sadly. So he
does, poor man! Look about the town, too, before you return, and see
what is going on. I heard this morning that they are turning loyal;
and if so, I may honour them with a visit myself some day."
The men rode away, and Captain Barecolt, after having secured the
horses to two trees, took his pistols from the saddle and rejoined his
prisoner in the cave. There seating himself on the ground, with his
long legs stretched out across the mouth of the excavation, he
beckoned Mr. Dry with a commanding air to seat himself also. It was
easy to perceive that Captain Barecolt had been rendered somewhat more
grand in his own opinion by the last stoup of wine, which he had
tossed off with no more ceremony than if it had been a gill; and his
captive, feeling that it might be dangerous to oppose him even in a
trifle, instantly seated himself on the ground, being at the time
somewhat weary with a ride of more than thirty miles that morning.
Captain Barecolt first began by examining the priming of his pistols,
the muzzles of which every now and then swept Mr. Dry's person in a
manner that made him very uncomfortable; but when this operation was
finished and the pistols were replaced in his belt, the royalist
officer turned his looks upon Mr. Dry with a sort of compassionate
contempt that was extremely irritating. "Ah! Master Dry, Master Dry!"
he said, "both you and I know this wood very well. You often used to
come here when you were an apprentice boy with old Nicholas Cobalter;
and many a pound of sugar and salt you hid away in that corner, just
behind where you are now sitting; many an ounce of pepper you laid in
the nook just over your head, till you could dispose of your
pilferings."
Mr. Dry said nothing, but gazed at Captain Barecolt from under his
bent brows, with a look of hatred and fear, such as might be supposed
to pass over his countenance if he had seen the infernal spirit.
"Ay," continued the officer, in a somewhat maudlin and sentimental
tone, "those were pleasant days, Mr. Dry, especially when you used to
take a walk in this wood with buxom Mrs. Cobalter, when her husband
went to London town; and she used to say, if ever he died you should
be her second, because you were tender of her feelings, and connived
at her dealing with the pottle-pot more freely than her husband
liked."
"And who the devil are you?" cried Mr. Dry, furiously, forgetting all
his sanctity in the irritating state of apprehension and astonishment
to which he was reduced.
"Ay, those were merry times, Master Dry," continued Barecolt, without
noticing his intemperate question, and fixing one eye upon his
companion's face, while the other rolled vacantly round the cave, as
if searching for memories or ideas. "Yes, Master Dry, no one would
have thought to see you the master of Longsoaken in those days. But it
all came of the widow, and your stepping in, by her help, into all
that old Cobalter left. Fair or foul, Master Dry, it matters not--you
got it, and that made a man of you."
"And who in the fiend's name are you?" demanded the Puritan, almost
springing at his throat.
"I will tell you, Ezekiel Dry," answered Barecolt, bending forward
and gazing sternly in his face--"I will tell you. I am Daniel
Cobalter--ay, little Daniel, the old man's only nephew--his brother's
son, whom with the widow's aid you cheated of his uncle's inheritance,
and left to go out into the world with five crown-pieces and a stout
heart; and, now that I have you here face to face in Wilbury Wood,
what have you to say why I should not blow your brains out for all
that you have done to me and mine?"
Mr. Dry, of Longsoaken, shrank into nothing, while Barecolt continued
to gaze upon him as sternly as if he could have eaten him alive. A
moment after, however, the gallant captain's face relaxed its awful
frown, and with a withering and contemptuous smile he went on:--"But
set your mind at ease, worm! You are safe in my scorn. I have done
better for myself than if I had been tied down to a mechanical life.
But take warning by what has happened, and do not let me catch you any
more at these tricks, or I will put my boot heel upon your head and
tread your brains out like a viper's. There--sit there, and be silent
till the men come back; for, if I see you move or hear you speak, you
will raise choler in me."
The gallant captain rose, and stood for a minute in the mouth of the
cave, then returned again and seated himself, looking at Dry with a
sneering smile. "Now art thou hammering thy poor thin brains to find
how Daniel Cobalter has become Captain Barecolt; but if thou twistest
the letters into proper form, thou wilt find that I have not taken one
from any man's name but my own. This is no robbery, Dry."
"Nay, I see! I see!" said the Puritan.
"Ay! dost thou so?" rejoined Barecolt; "then see and be silent;" and
he leaned his head upon his hand and gazed forth from the mouth of the
cave. Presently, Captain Barecolt's head nodded and his breath came
more heavily. Dry, of Longsoaken, gazed at him with his small eyes
full of fierce and baleful light; but his face did not grow red or
heated with the angry passion that was evidently working within him;
on the contrary, it was as white as that of a corpse. "Ruin!" he
muttered in a low voice to himself--"ruin!" and at the same time he
put his right hand into his pocket, where he had concealed the knife.
But Captain Barecolt suddenly raised his head. "You moved!" he said
sternly.
"It was but for my ease," answered Dry in a whining tone; "this ground
is very hard."
"Sit still!" rejoined the captain, frowning, and then resumed the same
attitude. In two or three minutes he breathed hard again, and then he
snored, for he had drunk much wine and ridden far. For a few minutes
Mr. Dry thought he was feigning sleep, and yet it seemed very like
reality--sound, heavy, dull.
"It must be speedily, or not at all!" he thought to himself; "the
other men may soon be back. Softly! I will try him;" and rising, he
affected to look out of the mouth of the cave. Captain Barecolt slept
on.
Ezekiel Dry trembled very much, but he quietly put his hand once more
into his pocket and drew forth the knife. He grasped it tight; he took
a step forward to the sleeping man's side. Barecolt, accustomed to
watch, started and was rising; but ere he could gain his feet the blow
descended on his right breast, and, leaving the knife behind, Dry
darted out of the cave.
The blood gushed forth in a stream; but with a quick and firm hand
Barecolt drew a pistol from his belt, cocked it, took a step forward,
levelled, and fired. Dry, of Longsoaken, sprang up a foot from the
ground, and fell heavily upon the forest grass, his blood and brains
scattered around.
"Ha!" cried Barecolt; "ha, Master Dry! But I feel marvellous
faint--very faint: I will sit down;" and, resuming his seat, he leaned
back, while his face became as pale as ashes and the pistol fell from
his hands.