Hearing a footstep on the stairs, he assumed an attitude and expression of countenance indicative of drowsiness and stupidity. A moment afterwards, the woman entered, and placed upon the table a small pitcher containing liquor. Taking from a shelf two tumblers, she turned her back towards Frank, and drew from her bosom a small box, from which she rapidly transferred a few grains of fine white powder into one of the tumblers; then going to a cupboard in one corner, she put a teaspoonful of loaf sugar into each of the tumblers, and placing them upon the table, requested our hero to 'help himself.'
Frank poured some liquor into the tumbler nearest him, and looking askance at the woman as he did so, he saw that her features wore a smile of satisfaction; she then supplied her own glass, and was about to raise it to her lips, when our hero said, in a gruff, sleepy tone—
'I say, old woman, you haven't half sweetened this grog of mine. Don't be so d—d stingy of your sugar, for I've money enough to pay for it.'
The woman turned and went to the closet to get another spoonful of the article in question; when Frank, with the rapidity of lightning, changed the tumblers, placing the deadly dose designed for him, in the same spot where the woman's tumbler had stood. This movement was accomplished with so much dexterity, that when she advanced to the table with the sugar, she failed to notice the alteration.
'Well, old gal—here's to the wind that blows, the ship that goes, and the lass that loves a sailor!' And delivering himself of this hackneyed nautical toast, the pretended seaman drank off the contents of his glass, an example which was followed by the female miscreant, who responded to Frank's toast by uttering aloud the significant wish—
'May your sleep to-night be sound!'
'Ay, ay, I hope so, and yours, too,' grumbled our hero, placing an enormous quid of tobacco in his cheek, in order to remove the unpleasant taste of the vile liquor which he had just drank.
There was a pause of a few minutes; when suddenly the woman grasped Frank convulsively by the arm, and gazed into his countenance with wildly gleaming eyes.
'Tell me,' she gasped, like one in the agonies of strangulation—'tell me the truth, for God's sake—did you change those tumblers?'
'I did,' was the answer.