At this hopeless picture of his situation, the ruffian first swore and blasphemed for two or three minutes, and then, relapsing into the other extreme, cast himself down and wept like a child.
"Fie, fie, Tony!" cried the officer. "Die game, any how--why, I thought you were more varment than that comes to--a man must die somehow, you know--and you have had a long pull at it, my lad--besides, it's all nonsense when one knows that it must be so."
"Ay, that's the job!" said the prisoner. "If one could but think of some way of getting off"----
"Don't you fancy that," replied the officer. "Why, look ye now, Tony, if you could get off for this last job, I'll tell you as a friend, they'd hang you for that burning business; for they've got proof enough against you for that."
This last argument seemed completely to dispel all Mr. Anthony Smithson's objections to being hanged; and after two or three exhortations to those virtues that Bow Street officers expect from thieves, the two children of Mercury went on to visit the female prisoner. As, however, we have fully as great a disgust to scenes of low vice and misery as our readers can have, and only introduce them, where compelled to do so in accordance with truth, we shall leave the officers to conduct their prisoners to England, and proceed to notice the events which occurred to Henry Beauchamp, in whose favour we have already kept our promise, of giving up to him the greater part of this volume.
That gentleman then set off from Paris with all speed, as soon as he had seen the prisoners safely consigned to the Bow Street officers. He well knew, that such adventures as those in which he had lately been engaged, could not fail to find their way into the mouth of Rumour; and for many reasons he wished to reach London, ere that lady was ready to go trumpeting before him, like the man with the box on his back, who walks before Punch.
He succeeded tolerably well; so that the fact of Henry Beauchamp being living instead of dead, upon dry land instead of under the sea, was not known to above fifty thousand people when he arrived in London. Out of this number about a thousand had congratulated Lord Ashborough on the resuscitation of his nephew; but the noble lord had so impressed upon his mind that his nephew was dead, that he would not believe a word of the story, gravely saying, that he would give it implicit credence, as soon as he heard it from any one who would say, that they had seen Henry Beauchamp with their own eyes.
As none of those could be met with, and as the story could be traced to no authentic source, Lord Ashborough held fast his conviction; and up to the hour of Beauchamp's arrival continued in the same belief.
It was late at night, or rather early in the morning, when Beauchamp did once more reach the capital; and as he imagined that he was not likely to find anything prepared for his accommodation in the house of a dead man, he directed the postboys to drive to a hotel, rather than his own dwelling. It was later the next morning when he rose, than he had purposed over night; but nevertheless, as soon as he was up, he set forth for Lord Ashborough's, and walked immediately into the drawing-room, where, although the earl himself had breakfasted and gone out, Beauchamp had soon the pleasure of holding his sister in his arms.
Although Maria Beauchamp was not in the least surprised to see him, as she had long before received convincing assurances of his safety; and though she was as light a hearted girl as ever danced through life, unconscious of its sorrows--yet when she first met her brother, after all the dangers he had encountered, the tears rose up in her eyes, from the more vivid impression which his presence produced upon her mind, of the loss she would have suffered, had the report of his death been true.