"Hark!" cried Lady Biddy, as another scream came from the black.
"Yes, he is in terrible agony," says Rodrigues, "and he will continue to suffer while I am ignorant of the one fact I want to know. He will be taken down the moment I know who stabbed him. Will you tell me?"
Now my lady was in a sore strait, for she could not tell him it was I, and yet by not telling him must she prolong the terrible torment of the black.
"He must hang there till he dies of his pain," continues Rodrigues (after watching my lady's embarrassed face for a minute), "if I am kept ignorant. On the other hand, I promise you he shall be amply recompensed for his pangs if I find out."
Lady Biddy heard this, yet little did she reck what Rodrigues intended for the black's recompense.
"Suppose I did it with my own hand," says she, eagerly.
Rodrigues fetched from his pocket a mariner's jack-knife, and says he, "Is this yours, madam?"
"No," says she, looking at it in perplexity.
"You don't know the look of it?" he asks.
She shook her head with misgiving.