"Your sword?" Matterson repeated slowly. "Your sword and your head?"
There was a question in his voice, but Arnold did not answer it. Returning a curt, "Yes," as if regretting that he had said so much, he brushed Matterson's chessmen together, and looked out of the door and down the long slope at the tall green grass beside the spring, which seemed as far away from us as did our own well, thousands of miles away in Topham.
And still Gleazen and O'Hara played on. Time and again we heard the whir of shuffling and the slap of cards flung on top of one another.
Now the sun was setting. The swift twilight came upon us and faded into darkness, and the card-players also stopped their game.
CHAPTER XXVI
AN UNSEEN FOE
All day Seth Upham had scarcely said a word. From dawn until dark he had paced the hut, apparently buried deep in thought. Only his gaunt, pitiful face revealed the extent to which he shared our tortures.
Now for the first time in all that day, to our surprise, he spoke; and his first words confirmed every fear we had felt for him.
"The boys ought not to make so much noise," he said. "I must speak to the constable about it."