"Exactly! Huzza for Lieutenant Duffel!"
"Silence!"
"I beg pardon."
"Remember the time, next Thursday night, and don't fail to be at the 'dark passage' in time."
"We'll be there, don't fear; and the thing shall be done up handsomely."
"But what's to be done with the feller's body when he's dead, I'd like to know?" interposed Dick.
"Sure enough," replied Duffel; "I had forgotten to instruct you on that point. Take him to the sink in that black swamp, and be sure to make him stay under. We want no tell-tale carcasses showing themselves."
"You need have no fears on that point; once there and he'll never see the light again, nor the light him."
"I will now leave you to make such arrangements between yourselves as may be necessary for the work before you. Leave nothing incomplete, and be punctual to the very minute in every instance."
With this parting injunction, Duffel left his villainous companions, who began at once to prepare themselves for the dastardly business their superior had allotted to them in his schemes of rascality and black-hearted crime. This was Monday, in the afternoon, and consequently, but three days until Hadley was to be waylaid and slain, and immediately afterward somebody's horses stolen and run off, the crime of stealing which was to be laid upon the murdered man. This was a plot worthy of the wretch who conceived it, and, with the aid of villains as unscrupulous as himself, was about to be put in execution.