he
moment. It was but momentary. He arose and commenced to pace the floor
again. 'My Mary! you too sacrificed! O, fiend! fiend! But my vengeance
shall be terrible! To-night I shall be free from my oath!' He walked up
to the table and drank. Curly Tom watched him intently as he resumed his
unsteady walk.

'He little dreams that I can enter his very chamber at any hour. Oh!
coward, fool, dolt, that I have been, to delay my just revenge on the
word of that old pirate. I believe him,--some paid minion of this proud
man; for he has them in every guise, perhaps the very appointment made
three years ago in the West Indies, was a trap, perhaps,--even this clod
is a spy and accomplice;' he took a pistol from an inner pocket and
cocking it, pressed it to the ear of his companion. 'Tom,' said he, 'if
I thought you would betray me.' The ruffian possessed that brute
indifference to danger too often mistaken for true courage,--he did not
tremble, though a slight paleness was visible on his repulsive
countenance as he felt the touch of the iron barrel. 'Whoy! Measter
Horace,' said he, 'didn't you save moy old mawther from being drowned by
the boys vor a witch, noa, noa,--I be true, and hate yearl and lawyer,
and all the great volk.'

'I believe you,' said the other, replacing the pistol, 'but' he began to
mutter indistinctly, took a few steps in a wild, uncertain way;--'I feel
dizzy,--d----nation,' he staggered to a seat and dropped his head upon
the piece of rock that served them for a table;--the opiate had done its
work.

Curly Tom cautiously arose, and walking up to him, looked upon him long
and steadily, listening to the heavy breathing,--he wished to remove his
arms, but the position Hunter was lying in, prevented his doing so. The
ruffian felt no remorse; it was true that Hunter had saved the wretch's
mother from being abused and ill-treated, perhaps murdered, by the
superstitious villagers: true that he had regularly allowed the poor old
woman support till her death,--while her ruffian son was pursuing his
career of crime,--but the villain knew his own neck was in danger, and
being conscious of perfidy, now hated Hunter for his momentary
suspicion. As he leaned over the insensible man, his light, bleary eyes
gleaming with ferocious satisfaction, his lank, shambling figure, and
yellow, matted hair hanging in elf locks round his sharp visage, he
looked like an unclean bird of prey hovering over a carcase. And a
carcase it wa