“Who says I can?” angrily demanded Purley. “I can’t blame anybody! And how the demon they managed to pick the lock and open the door, and climb over me, I don’t know! Nor have we time to inquire!”
“Take your bitters, Mr. Purley,” said the host, offering the glass.
The bailiff quaffed the offered restorative at a draught, and then said:
“Farmer, saddle a couple of horses for us, directly! We must pursue them without loss of time! They can not have got very far ahead of us in these few hours!” he added, being totally unconscious of the length of time he had slept, and the whole day he had lost.
“My—my horses will be busy all day hauling wood,” replied the farmer.
“Don’t care! I order you in the name of the Commonwealth of Virginia, to saddle those horses, and place them at our disposal to pursue our prisoner,” said Purley, in a peremptory tone.
The farmer was quite uncertain whether or not that was an order he was bound to obey; and besides, he was very unwilling that his horses should be taken off their work at all, and especially for the purpose of pursuing Sybil Berners. But still he felt that it would be safer for her, if not for himself, if he should yield to the demand of the sheriff’s officer; he could put him on the wrong track, by counselling him to ride towards the east, while he knew that Sybil was far on her route to the west.
So without further demur, he went out to execute the order.
“And, farmer, when you have seen to that matter, I want you to gather all your men and maids into the breakfast room, that I may question them while I eat my breakfast, so as not now to lose a moment,” he called after his retreating host.
All this was done as he directed. And when the family and the house servants were assembled in the breakfast room, and Purley examined and cross-examined them as to whether they had seen or heard anything of the prisoner or her husband during the night, they could all answer with perfect truth, that they had not. So old Purley got no satisfaction from them.