‘No,’ replied Jenkins, ‘not by my own hands; besides it would be a pity to deprive the hangman of a job.’
Gordon did not return any answer to this, for when he recollected the crimes of which he had himself been guilty, he thought that it was not all unlikely that he should himself afford employment for that functionary, sooner or later.
In the morning early, the robber captain was traversing his way along the vaulted passages, and at length stopped at the door of the vault in which Blodget was confined. There he paused and listened, for he could not help feeling that he was only justly punished for the part he had played towards the unfortunate Inez and her friends.
At length he withdrew the bolts, and entered the cell. The dim light which was emitted by the lamp which Jenkins carried, could but faintly penetrate the gloom of the miserable place, so that Blodget did not at first perceive who it was that had entered, and no doubt, did not think that it was any one else than Gordon; and the robber stood contemplating him for a minute or two in silence, but resentment was strongly portrayed in his countenance.
‘So, villain,’ he at length said, ‘you have dared to brave my threats, to disobey my injunctions, and have again offered to—’
He was interrupted by a loud exclamation from Blodget, who, upon recognizing his voice, sprang forward, and in the most abject manner knelt at Jenkins’s feet, and looked up in his face with the most earnest supplication.
‘Oh, Jenkins,’ he cried, in the most impressive tones; ‘spare me;—pity me;—pardon me!—I will own my guilt;—I will acknowledge I was wrong; but let the agony I have for the last fortnight endured in this place satisfy you, and do not, oh, do not proceed to extremities.’
Jenkins fixed upon him a look of the utmost contempt, as he replied:
‘And have you, then, the effrontery to crave pardon, after setting all my injunctions at defiance? I gave you sufficient warning of what the consequences would be, did you not obey me; you have scorned it, and those consequences you must abide by.’
‘No, no;’ groaned the poor terrified wretch, still remaining on his knees, and looking the very picture of death, with the excess of his fears; ‘you will not surely do as you say?—You will not deliver me up to justice?—Consign me to an ignominious and violent death! Pause ere you do so!—My death will avail you nothing. Suffer me therefore to live to repent, and I promise you that neither Inez or her friends shall receive any further annoyance from me!’