His directions were given with great clearness; the horses they were to ride, the part of the premises they were to fire, which of them was to enter the house and seize the trunk, and who the individual that should bear it with, the utmost speed to the dark rendezvous, where he, Cross, would be in waiting to receive it.
'And if it goes well, you shall be made men—you hear that?'
'Yes.' But they had heard the same before, and were yet the drudges of his will. His power over them they knew—his frown they feared; and his command must be obeyed.
Every word that passed came up with painful distinctness to the ears of the young man who lay above them, almost breathless in his dread lest some sound, even the beat of his heart against the planks, should be heard, and his presence discovered. He knew well the desperate character of the men, and that he must move with wary steps.
Every thing is at length arranged, and he hears them again fortifying their spirits by a deep draught. The door is opened, and one by one they steal out, but apparently with little zest for the work before them. Cross waited a moment on the threshold, until they disappeared amid the dark pines, and then, muttering curses on the men who were about to blacken their souls with a heinous crime for his sake, he stepped back into the store, poured out some gin from his bottle, took a long drink, threw himself into one of the chairs, and, leaning back against the counter, amused himself with swinging his heel against one of the rungs.
Bill Brown—for it was he who had been the providential listener to this vile scheme, had learned more in one short lesson than through his whole life before. Light, as though from heaven, flashed upon him; the dreadful character of his employer was revealed in all its blackness. Fear, likewise, had taken hold upon him; a groan, a movement, even too loud a breath, might place him in an instant on the verge of eternity.
And then, too, the dreadful fate which hung over that family. Bill had been a recreant to the path of duty; his mother's counsels he had set light by, and too often had he ridiculed the interest which she felt in those friends of her early days, and had done his best to persuade Hettie against making her home there: but now he would give half his life for the power of flying to them. How he longed to grapple with the hateful wretch, and then spread the alarm ere their mansion was wrapped in flames, and perhaps some of the family victims to their fury. But he knew that Cross was armed, and a powerful man.
The tramp of horses is heard; his heart sinks within him; furiously they pass the place, and far, far away, the sounds come back fainter and fainter upon the stillness of the night.
How long he thus remained he could not tell, for minutes are hours when the heart is in such an exciting suspense. At length he hears the snap of a watch-case. Cross rises from his seat, opens the door, fastens it from without, and is off. Bill waited not to hear his retiring footsteps; he springs to the floor, hastens to a window, of which he had not thought in his first attempt; it opened on one side of the building, and was seldom used. The sash creaked as he forced it through the mouldy casement, and, quickly letting himself down, carefully closed the shutters, and then looking round as though the avenger of blood might be watching for him, crossed the road, and entered a thick covert of pines. He turned and looked at the long dark building where he had wasted so much of his past life—
'If I once get beyond your reach, good-by to you for ever.'