"Never mind, never mind," replied Chancey; "do you reckon your money over, and be very sure the bond will come time enough. I don't wonder, though, you're eager to have it fast in your own hands again—but it will come—it will come."
Ashwoode proceeded to open the pocket-book and to turn over the notes.
"They're all right," said he, "they're all right. But, hush!" he added, slightly changing colour—"I hear something stirring in the next room."
"Oh, dear, dear, it's nothing but the cat," rejoined Chancey, with an ugly laugh.
"Your cat treads very heavily," said Ashwoode, suspiciously.
"So it does," rejoined Chancey, "it does tread heavy; it's a very large cat, so it is; it has wonderful great claws; it can see in the dark; it's a great cat; it never missed a rat yet; and I've seen it lure the bird off a branch with the mere power of its eye; it's a great cat—but reckon your money, and I'll go in for the bond."
This strange speech was uttered in a manner at least as strange, and Chancey, without waiting for commentary or interruption, passed into the next room. The step crossed the adjoining chamber, and Ashwoode heard the rustling of papers; it then returned, the door opened, and not Gordon Chancey, but Nicholas Blarden entered the room and confronted Sir Henry Ashwoode. Personal fear in bodily conflict was a thing unknown to the young baronet, but now all courage, all strength forsook him, and he stood gazing in vacant horror upon that, to him, most tremendous apparition, with a face white as ashes, and covered with the starting dews of terror.
With that hideous combination, a smile and a scowl, stamped upon his coarse features, the wretch stood with folded arms, in an attitude of indescribable exultation, gazing with savage, gloating eyes full upon his appalled and terror-stricken victim. Fixed as statues they both remained for several minutes.
"Ho, ho, ho! you look frightened, young man," exclaimed Blarden, with a horse laugh; "you look as if you were going to be hanged—you look as if the hemp were round your neck—you look as if the hangman had you by the collar, you do—ho, ho, ho!"
Ashwoode's bloodless lips moved, but utterance was gone.
"It's hard to get the words out," continued Blarden, with ferocious glee. "I never knew the man yet could do a last dying speech smooth—a sort of choking comes on, eh?—the sight of the minister and the hangman makes a man feel so quare, eh?—and the coffin looks so ugly, and all the crowd; it's confusing somehow, and puts a man out, eh?—ho, ho, ho!"
Ashwoode laid his hand upon his forehead, and gazed on in blank horror.
"Why, you're not such a great man, by half, as you were in the play-house the other evening," continued Blarden; "you don't look so grand, by any manner of means. Some way or other, you look a little sickish or so. I'm afraid you don't like my company—ho, ho, ho!"
Still Sir Henry remained locked in the same stupefied silence.
"Ho, ho! you seem to think your hemp is twisted, and your boards sawed," resumed Blarden; "you seem to think you're in a fix at last—and so do I, by ——!" he thundered, "for I have the rope fairly round your weasand, and, by —— I'll make you dance upon nothing, at Gallows Hill, before you're a month older. Do you hear that—do you—you swindler? Eh—you gaol-bird, you common forger, you robber, you crows' meat—who holds the winning cards now?"
"Where—where's the bond?" said Ashwoode, scarce audibly.
"Where's your precious bond, you forger, you gibbet-carrion?" shouted Blarden, exultingly. "Where's your forged bond—the bond that will crack your neck for you—where is it, eh? Why, here—here in my breeches pocket—that's where it is. I hope you think it safe enough—eh, you gallows-tassle?"
Yielding to some confused instinctive prompting to recover the fatal instrument, Ashwoode drew his sword, and would have rushed upon his brutal and triumphant persecutor; but Blarden was not unprepared even for this. With the quickness of light, he snatched a pistol from his coat pocket, recoiling, as he did so, a hurried pace or two, and while he turned, coward as he was, pale and livid as death, he levelled it at the young man's breast, and both stood for an instant motionless, in the attitudes of deadly antagonism.
"Put up your sword; I have you there, as well as everywhere else—regularly checkmated, by ——!" shouted Blarden, with the ferocity of half-desperate cowardice. "Put up your sword, I say, and don't be a bloody idiot, along with everything else. Don't you see you're done for?—there's not a chance left you. You're in the cage, and there's no need to knock yourself to pieces against the bars—you're done for, I tell you."
With a mute but expressive gesture of despair, Ashwoode grasped his sword by the slender, glittering blade, and broke it across. The fragments dropped from his hands, and he sunk almost lifeless into a chair—a spectacle so ghastly, that Blarden for a moment thought that death was about to rescue his victim.
"Chancey, come out here," exclaimed Blarden; "the fellow has taken the staggers—come out, will you?"
"Oh! dear me, dear me," said Chancey, in his own quiet way, "but he looks very bad."
"Go over and shake him," said Blarden, still holding the pistol in his hand. "What are you afraid of? He can't hurt you—he has broken his bilbo across—the symbol of gentility. By ——! he's a good deal down in the mouth."
While they thus debated, Ashwoode rose up, looking more like a corpse endowed with motion than a living man.
"Take me away at once," said he, with a sullen wildness—"take me away to gaol, or where you will—anywhere were better than this place. Take me away; I am ruined—blasted. Make the most of it—your infernal scheme has succeeded—take me to prison."
"Oh, murder! he wants to go to gaol—do you hear him, Chancey?" cried Blarden—"such an elegant, fine gentleman to think of such a thing: only to think of a baronet in gaol—and for forgery, too—and the condemned cell such an ungentlemanly sort of a hole. Why, you'd have to use perfumes to no end, to make the place fit for the reception of your aristocratic visitors—my Lord this, and my Lady that—for, of course, you'll keep none but the best of company—ho, ho, ho! Perhaps the judge that's to try you may turn out to be an old acquaintance, for your luck is surprising—isn't it, Chancey?—and he'll pay you a fine compliment, and express his regret when he's going to pass sentence, eh?—ho, ho, ho! But, after all, I'd advise you, if the condescension is not too much to expect from such a very fine gentleman as you, to consort as much as possible with the turnkey—he's the most useful friend you can make, under your peculiarly delicate circumstances—ho, ho!—eh? It's just possible he mayn't like to associate with you, for some of them fellows are rather stiff, d'ye see, and won't keep company with certain classes of the coves in quod, such as forgers or pickpockets; but if he'll allow it, you'd better get intimate with him—ho, ho, ho!—eh?"
"Take me to the prison, sir," said Ashwoode, sternly—"I suppose you mean to do so. Let your officers remove me at once—you have, no doubt, men for the purpose in the next room. Let them call a coach, and I will go with them—but let it be at once."
"Well, you're not far out there, by ——!" replied Blarden. "I have a broad-shouldered acquaintance or two, and a little bit of a warrant—you understand?—in the next apartment. Grimes, Grimes, come in here—you're wanted."
A huge, ill-looking fellow, with his coat buttoned up to his chin, and a short pipe protruding from the corner of his mouth, swaggered into the chamber, with that peculiar gait which seems as if contracted by habitually shouldering and jostling through mobs and all manner of riotous assemblies.
"That's the bird?" said the fellow, interrogatively, and pointing with his pipe carelessly at Ashwoode. "You're my prisoner," he added, gruffly addressing the unfortunate young man, and at the same time planting his ponderous hand heavily upon his shoulder, he in the other exhibited a crumpled warrant.
"Grimes, go call a coach," said Blarden, "and don't be a brace of shakes about it, do you mind."
Grimes departed, and Blarden,