This argument was irrefutable; the Sage was mute. With all his reading, all his knowledge, was he to be insulted thus?
In fact, he looked so woe-begone that Charles came to his relief, saying, “Never mind Mr. Kidd, boys; let us follow the necromancers orders blindly.”
All agreed to do this, and soon afterwards they separated.
All unknown to them, they had had a listener. The conversation had taken place in the school-grounds, and a great over-grown boy had seen them, and drawn near enough to hear every word. As a wood-pile was between him and the heroes, he escaped notice. This “great, hulking lubber,” as Charles called him, was the boy who had been bitten by Stephen’s dog several months before, and who, as was intimated, thirsted for revenge. Ever since that time he had dogged the six, in the vain hope of detecting them in some evil scheme.
He was a cowardly, treacherous boy, this Bob Herriman, or he would not have played the eaves-dropper on this occasion. He now resolved to precede the boys, hide himself in the evergreen, and do his best to torment them.
Most horrible revenge, truly!
“I’ll get there ahead of ’em,” he muttered, “and climb the tree Stepping Hen (the opprobrious nickname by which, in his anger, he privately knew Stephen) spoke of! I think I know the very tree. I’ll yell, perhaps, or scare ’em awful in some way, and if they do any harm to anything, I’ll tell on ’em! Oh! what fun!”
Then this embryo villain strutted away, with a mischievous look—a look that boded ill to the Sage’s experiment. He was an immoral boy, while Will and his companions were only boyish, and full of animal spirits.
The boys longed for night to come, as they imagined they could easily confute the vile and slovenly old necromancer’s errors, and find food for laughter. Some time before sunset they turned out in force, and mustered just below the falls. Everything that could possibly be made useful was on hand. George, poor boy, had freighted himself with a coil of heavy rope, but he bore up bravely, and strode onward without a groan.
When they were fairly started, Charles suddenly in-inquired of him: “What in the world have you brought that rope along for, George?”