“We’ve got our duty to do, sir,” said one of the men roughly. But he took the paper, and read it.
“Seems all right,” he whispered. “Keep quiet, Smith. They couldn’t get away if they wanted.”
“How long would it take to fetch the surgeon?” said Luke, sternly; “or could we get him to the prison through the fog?”
“I think we could lead the horse,” said the warder addressed, who began to feel some misgivings about the day’s work, as he truly read Cyril Mallow’s ghastly face.
“Luke—Luke Ross,” said a faint voice that he did not seem to recognise, and he turned and knelt down once more by the wounded man, the warders closing in, to make sure that it was no trick.
“Ross—my hand,” panted Cyril. “Fog’s—getting thick—and dark. Smith—you fired—but—do you hear—I’ve got away.”
There was a terrible pause here, and, to a man, the warders turned away, for they saw what was coming now.
“Luke Ross—good fellow,”—panted the dying man—“Sage—my wife—little ones.”
His eyes seemed to give the meaning to his words, as, still heedless of his wife’s presence, he gazed in those of the man whose life he had seemed to blast.
“Wife—little ones. God for—”