“Well, so I will, if you recommend it,” said the other, submissively; “but surely, a ten-pound note would do you no harm yourself, Sergeant.”
An insolent laugh was the only answer the other vouchsafed, as he lighted his cigar and sat down before the fire.
“They won't let me see him for the mischief it might do him,” resumed the other, “and little they know that what I have to tell him might be the saving of his life.”
“How so?”
“Just that I 've news for him here that would make a man a'most get out of his coffin,—news that would do more to cure him than all the doctors in Europe. There's paper in that bag there that only wants his name to them' to be worth thousands and thousands of pounds, and if he dies without signing them there's nothing but ruin to come of it; and when I said a ten-pound note awhile ago to you, it was a hundred gold sovereigns I meant, counted into the hollow of your fist, just as you sat there. See now, show me your hand.”
As if in a sort of Jocular pantomime, the man held out his hand, and the other, taking a strong leather purse from his pocket, proceeded to untie the string, fastened with many a cunning device. At length it was opened, and, emptying out a quantity of its contents into one hand, he began to deposit the pieces, one by one, in the other's palm. “One, two, three, four,” went he on, leisurely, till the last sovereign dropped from his fingers with the words “one hundred!”
Secret and safe as the bargain seemed, a pair of keen eyes peering through the half-snowed-up window had watched the whole negotiation, following the sergeant's fingers as they closed upon the gold and deposited it within his pocket.
“Wait here, and I'll see what can be done by and by,” said the sergeant, as he moved away.
Scarcely was the stranger left alone than the door opened, and a man entered, shaking the snow from his heavy boots and his long capote.
“So, my worthy friend,” cried he, in a rich, soft voice, “you stole a march on me,—moved off without beat of drum, and took up a position before I was stirring!”