"I could have wished it had been otherwise. However, you will meet your two friends according to agreement; and you will endeavour to keep them in conversation for a few minutes in the road between the two burial-grounds. This will give my people time to surround them, as it were: for it is my intention to arrest those two men this very night."
Jeffreys looked alarmed and said, "They will be sure to think that I have betrayed them, sir."
"Leave all that to me," returned the Black. "I will take care that they shall never have the opportunity of injuring you. Wilton—the servant who has just left this chamber—will conduct the expedition to night; and he will allow you to escape. You will then proceed as quickly as possible to Seven Dials, where Old Death, according to what you told me this morning, must have already taken up his abode;—and you will tell him that when it came to the last moment, Tim the Snammer and Josh Pedler were afraid to undertake the business of digging up the coffin, and resolved to have nothing more to do with him or his affairs. But you will assure him that you remain faithful to him, and that you can recommend two friends of your own who will be delighted to do all he requires for a quarter of the sum he agreed to pay Pedler and Splint. If he accepts the service of your pretended friends, you will make an appointment to meet him in some, low neighbourhood the day after to-morrow, in the evening. Let the time named be a late hour; and should he wish you and your friends to call on him in Earl Street, raise objections, as it does not suit my purpose that the appointment should be there. It must be a place of meeting from which he has to walk home afterwards."
"I understand all your commands, sir," said Jeffreys; "and you may depend upon them being faithfully executed."
"I rely upon you," observed the Black; and, after a few moments' consideration, he added, "To-morrow evening at nine o'clock, punctually, you must be in Wilderness Row, beneath the wall of the Charter House gardens; and I shall send some one to receive an account of your proceedings with Old Death, and give you further instructions. But once more I say, be faithful—be prudent—and avoid any vain or foolish display of your money."
"I wish you would have more confidence in me, sir," exclaimed Jeffreys: then, after a brief pause, he said, as an idea struck him, "I have a great deal of money about me, sir—and I wish you would take care of it for me."
"Now I am convinced of your honest intentions, my good fellow," said his master, in a kinder tone than he had yet adopted towards the man. "If you propose to leave your money with me as a guarantee of your good faith, I do not now require any such security: but if your object be to place it in safety, I will accept the trust."
"Well, sir—let it be in the way you have just mentioned," returned Jeffreys.
"Here is a drawer—lock up any thing you choose therein, and take the key with you," said the Black.
Jeffreys did as he was desired: Wilton was again summoned—an excellent dinner was supplied the new dependant and the servant who was appointed to remain with him;—and the Black retired to his own apartment.