CHAPTER LIX.
“HELP! help! murder! help! murder!” Such were the cries that invaded the sleepers' ears in the middle of the night, to which horrible sounds was added the furious barking of Carlo.
The men seized their revolvers and rushed out of the tent. At about sixty yards distant they saw a man on the ground struggling under two fellows, and still crying, though more faintly, “murder” and “help.”
“They are killing him!” cried George; and Robinson and he cocked their revolvers and ran furiously toward the men. But these did not wait the attack. They started up and off like the wind, followed by two shots from Robinson that whistled unpleasantly near them.
“Have they hurt you, my poor fellow?” said Robinson.
The man only groaned for answer.
Robinson turned his face up in the moonlight, and recognized a man to whom he had never spoken, but whom his watchful eye had noticed more than once in the mine—it was, in fact, the peddler Walker.
“Stop, George, I have seen this face in bad company. Oh! back to our tent for your life, and kill any man you see near it!”
They ran back. They saw two dark figures melting into the night on the other side the tent. They darted in—they felt for the bag. Gone! They felt convulsively all round the tent. Gone! With trembling hands Robinson struck a light. Gone—the work of months in a moment—-the hope of a life snatched out of a lover's very hand, and held out a mile off again!