“I don’t want you to be quodded,” said he, “but I shall just have a search before I let you go.”
“S’help me goodness,” ejaculated the gipsy, “that’s every blessed thing I’ve taken; I swear to you it is, and I’ll take my Bible hoath on it. I wouldn’t deceive you. Lord! how my leg do pain me.”
He turned his pockets inside out, and convinced our hero that for once he had spoken the truth.
“No more burglary bis’ness for me,” cried the gipsy. “I aint good at it. One pill’s a dose.”
“What made you attempt this one?”
“Well, if yer must know, I was put up to it by a swell. Ah! you’ve sent a bullet into my leg, and maimed me for life, perhaps, and a stopped me a getting a couple o’ hundred quid—that’s what you’ve been and done. But you’ll let me go?”
“I don’t know how you are to get clean off. I expect the officer here every minute.”
“I’ve got a fast trotting prod not fifty yards hence. If I’ve strength enough left, which I think I have, to mount him, the devil himself wont catch me when once on his back.”
“Go your way then—I will return,” cried our hero, as he thrust into his coat pocket the much-treasured jewel case, and made again for the wooden bridge.
He passed over this, when he was met by Brickett and the detective.