"Doubt me not," said the gipsy, sternly, discovering at once that suspicions, slight indeed, but newly awakened by the proposed delay, were coming over the mind of his companion. "Doubt me not. By the God that I worship, by the heavens his handiwork, by the life he gave me, by the liberty I value more, I will not fail you. You have spared me when you might have thrust me into a dungeon, and I would not deceive you even by a thought."
"I believe you," answered Manners; "I believe you--only this, I am very anxious, ere I return to Morley House, to be enabled to give some account of him I seek; to be enabled, in short, to afford some comfort to Edward de Vaux's family. Can we not proceed then at once?"
"No!" answered the gipsy. "I must think of my own race too. By the unhappy occurrences of last night, my people have been scattered and have fled for concealment, while I remained to see whether I could find, or could deliver, the unfortunate prey, which those who laid the trap for us had found in the snare. My companions know not yet where I am; and I know not whether they are safe. Thus, ere I go farther, I must see what have been the events of this day to those whom I am bound to protect and guide."
"Be it so then," answered Manners; "but, at all events, you will allow me to give De Vaux's family the assurance that he is living and is safe."
"As far," said the gipsy, "as you dare to trust to my most solemn assurance, he is living, and safe also, if you mean by that word that he is free from restraint, and from any risk of injury; but that he is well, you must not say; for he is ill in body and sick at heart; and it may be long ere he is cured of either."
"That is bad enough, indeed," answered Manners; "but it is so much better than the events, which we had reason to believe had occurred, that the bare fact of his being in a state of security will be an infinite relief to those who love him. I will trust to your word entirely, and both give the consolation which you have afforded to those who will feel it most deeply, and be here at the time you name, though I am not very much accustomed to calculate hours by hands-breadths of the sky; and you must remember that, from Morley House, the moon is seen in a different position from that in which she appears here." The gipsy smiled, with a slight touch of contempt at Manners's inexpertness in a mode of calculating the time, which was to him familiar. "Well, well," he said, "be here in just two hours, and you shall find me waiting you. In the meantime, rest at ease regarding your friend, and speak securely the words of hope and comfort to his family; and God be with you in your errand of peace. You have acted a noble part to-night, and there is one that blesses those who do so."
Thus saying, he sprang down the bank to the spot where the sword, which Manners's superior skill and strength had wrenched from his grasp, was lying under a low bush. Pharold snatched it up, and was about to return it to the sheath; but some sudden thought seemed to cross his mind, and holding it up, he gazed upon it for a moment or two in silence. "Accursed be thou!" he cried at length, in a bitter tone. "Accursed be thou, false friend and faithless servant! to leave thy master's hand at the moment of need!" and breaking the blade across his knee, he cast the fragments down the hill, and strode away, scarcely appearing to notice that Colonel Manners still stood gazing at his wild and vehement behaviour.
Manners smiled as he turned to retread his steps; and perhaps that smile might be occasioned by seeing the gipsy wreak his indignation at the failure he had met with in their struggle upon the senseless object which his hand had not been able to retain. Perhaps, too, he might remark how all uncultivated people resemble children; but, at all events, the tidings that he had heard of his friend's safety, and his conviction that those tidings were true, had certainly given him a much greater inclination to smile than he had felt when he came to that spot.
As he thought, however, over all the circumstances, while bending his way back once more to Morley House, he did not certainly find that his situation was, in every respect, a very pleasant one. He had to remember that the gipsy, Pharold, was charged with two other crimes besides the assumed death of Edward de Vaux. In regard to the first of these two, that of having been an accessary, or principal, in the murder of the late Lord Dewry, Manners had but Mrs. Falkland's opinion upon the subject to support his own doubts of the man's guilt. In regard to the second, that of having participated in the outrage at Dimden Park, and having fired the gun by which Sir Roger Millington was wounded, Manners, after leaving the peer at Dimden, as we shall almost immediately have occasion to show more particularly, had visited the keeper who had been wounded in the affray, and from him had learned sufficient to satisfy his mind that Pharold was guiltless of any share in that unfortunate transaction. On that point, therefore, his mind was satisfied; but, in regard to the other charge, he did not feel at all sure that he was not liable to severe animadversion for the lenity he had shown towards the gipsy.
"I do not know the laws of the land," he thought, with a half smile, "quite well enough to be sure whether they may not make me out an accessary after the fact, if ever this Pharold should be found guilty of slaying his benefactor; but, at all events, if the good gossiping world were to get hold of my having taken two or three moonlight walks with him, and having let him escape when I had the power to apprehend him, it would make a pretty story of it." However. Colonel Manners was a man who had too much confidence in his own motives, and too much reliance on what he called his good fortune, though others named it his good judgment, to care much what the world said; and this was probably one of the reasons why that world was well satisfied to load him with praise and honour. He took his way back to Morley House, therefore, tolerably satisfied with what he had done, thinking, "I must now, however, try to soften down Mrs. Falkland's wrath and indignation at my persevering rudeness this evening; but, doubtless, the tidings I bring will prove no small propitiation."