“Not the devil, exactly,” said the stranger coolly; “but your very humble servant, Colonel Blood! a gentleman, I can assure you, who will feel great pleasure in introducing each of you to the common hangman, unless you produce in two months the real murderer of Farmer Bertram, and serve me at all times.”
The stranger was in truth no other than Colonel Blood, but what brought him so far from London was a mystery which we shall have to clear up shortly.
CHAPTER IX.
THE MILLER’S DAUGHTER—COLONEL BLOOD FALLS INTO ROUGH HANDS—THE MURDER ON THE BRIDGE.
The reason that Colonel Blood was so far from London is easily explained by what took place in Darlington the second night of his visit.
The miller of the village, Hugh Harmer, had a very pretty daughter named Ellen, who was the pride and the toast of the surrounding country.
Like a hawk poised in the air, gazing on his intended prey below, did Colonel Blood hover around Hugh Harmer’s house close by the bubbling and splashing mill-stream.
He had espied Ellen by chance, and in her saw not the virtuous village maiden, but a beautiful object for his master, the Merry Monarch, who, Blood knew, would pay any price to gratify his beastial passions.
Captain Jack and his rough party had left the inn but half-an-hour, when a card was brought to Blood by some one old Horn had never seen before.