"Richard Abbot, your daughter refused me, and I swore I would be revenged. I joined the Shawnees as Simon Girty and others did, but I kept watch upon your settlement. I found out that you was going to send her to this place in company with others. Then I cac'lated the time had come, and was only sorry that you wasn't there, too, that you could have been tomahawked, too! I found out when the boat started, and it was dogged till it reached the right spot, when we came down upon it. Don't ax me no more. I've had my revenge, and that's enough."
The stricken-hearted man sat as pale and silent as death while these burning words were being uttered. It was not his emotions alone that made him thus, but the mighty struggle it took to control them.
"Will you not tell me?" he asked, in a voice of wailing agony that it would have melted the heart of human.
"No; I'll tell you nothing!" fairly shouted McGable, glaring like a tiger upon him.
"Once more I ask you, McGable, and in the name of Heaven do not refuse me. Was Marian killed outright?"
"None your business," was the sullen reply.
Such a sudden dizziness came over Abbot at this point, that, for fear of fainting, he arose and hurried into the room which occupied the same floor, and which connected with the one in which he had been sitting. He hoped to return in a moment, and was so bewildered and overcome that he only thought of being alone till he could regain his self-command. It is said the Old Boy himself sometimes helps his favorites. Whether such is the the case we are not prepared to say; but what now took place is enough to make us skeptical, to say the least.
Most singularly it happened that just before Abbot withdrew, Dingle felt a sudden return of his sickness of the morning. It was so violent that his iron will could not resist it, and he staggered away for the same purpose of being alone; for, if our readers have noticed it, it is almost invariably the case that when a man, unaccustomed to sickness, is suddenly taken, his first wish is to be alone with himself. He felt, too, that perfect recklessness which is apt to come over us at such times, in regard to temporal matters, and had Dingle been admonished at this particular moment of his imprudence, his probable reply would have been that McGable might go to perdition for all he cared. Thus it happened that the terrible renegade was left with no guard at all except Jenkins.
Even then it might not have happened so unfortunately, had not the last-named individual taken it into his head to ascertain how matters were progressing inside. Being left without the companionship of Dingle, it was perfectly natural that he should take this means of passing away time.
"Hello! inside there, you, how you getting along?" he called out, poking his head in at the door. Receiving no reply, he shoved his head further in, and then made the discovery that the renegade was standing alone in the middle of the floor. "Hello! all alone, eh? what you thinking about? Your sins, I s'pose. Shouldn't wonder now if you did feel sorter down in the mouth."