He was resolved to it; he stood with his shoulder set to the door-jamb, tense for one uttermost effort—when the sound of voices close by in the drive brought him to a pause; and the next moment he heard the front door flung open.
Silently, his heart fearfully drumming, he stepped back to the very spot from which he had risen, and, slipping down upon the boards, resumed as nearly as he could the position in which the ruffians had left him. As he did so, he heard the tramp of men in the passage, a sound of jeering voices, and the next moment the door of the room was thrown open and his visitors of the morning re-entered.
They bore the appearance of men baffled, but with some gloating evil in their hearts. Fern strode to the prisoner and picked at him roughly with his boot-toe.
“How now!” he shrilled. “D’you make your bed there?”
Tuke judged defiance the better policy.
“Curse you!” he cried in a broken voice. “Do you see this patch on the floor? ’Twould have said little for your judgment to have left me to bleed to death. A fine leader of rogues, on my faith!”
“Ha! my friend—we’ll cauterize the next wound for you with a red-hot blade. And so you’ve been seeking to bribe the sentry?”
There was hoarse laughter from the door, where a half-dozen scoundrel faces were gathered.
“I take my cue from the foremost of you,” said the prisoner, speaking up from the boards. “’Tis not so long since Mr. Brander there made me an offer of half-shares if I would give him secret possession of the gem.”
The devil stood a-tiptoe and looked out through the schoolmaster’s eyes. Mr. Fern’s face was gone a raw beetroot colour.