"Let me add, by way of precaution, that, in case you should ride past, or attempt to betray me, I am very capable of sending a bullet through your head."
He drew out from his pocket one of his pistols, much to the postilion's horror, and then replacing it said,—
"Now we understand each other."
He strode rapidly on, as he finished this speech, and was soon out of sight.
The night is cold, and the postilion gets impatient; the more so as the recent little conversation has not helped to raise his spirits. To earn a crown by a facile blindness is tempting enough; but he has an uneasy apprehension of something unpleasant; he dislikes the company of one who carries pistols, and seems so determined to use them on slight provocation.
But why tarry the lovers? It is long past the appointed time.
Can they have been detected?—Is the elopement frustrated?
Captain Heath anxiously asks himself these questions; and perhaps the reader shares his impatience. He has a readier means of satisfying his curiosity, however, than the captain had; for he has only to turn to the next volume.
END OF VOL. I.
London: Printed by STEWART and MURRAY, Old Bailey.