‘Hush, hush,’ replied the mayor: ‘the other party of course.’
‘The other party!’ exclaimed Trott, with an effort to retreat.
‘Yes, yes; you’ll soon find that out, before you go far, I should think—but make a noise, you’ll excite suspicion if you whisper to me so much.’
‘I won’t go in this chaise!’ shouted Mr. Alexander Trott, all his original fears recurring with tenfold violence. ‘I shall be assassinated—I shall be—’
‘Bravo, bravo,’ whispered Overton. ‘I’ll push you in.’
‘But I won’t go,’ exclaimed Mr. Trott. ‘Help here, help! They’re carrying me away against my will. This is a plot to murder me.’
‘Poor dear!’ said Mrs. Williamson again.
‘Now, boys, put ’em along,’ cried the mayor, pushing Trott in and slamming the door. ‘Off with you, as quick as you can, and stop for nothing till you come to the next stage—all right!’
‘Horses are paid, Tom,’ screamed Mrs. Williamson; and away went the chaise, at the rate of fourteen miles an hour, with Mr. Alexander Trott and Miss Julia Manners carefully shut up in the inside.
Mr. Alexander Trott remained coiled up in one corner of the chaise, and his mysterious companion in the other, for the first two or three miles; Mr. Trott edging more and more into his corner, as he felt his companion gradually edging more and more from hers; and vainly endeavouring in the darkness to catch a glimpse of the furious face of the supposed Horace Hunter.