"An' what's more, missus, we aint going to, if you do jes like we tell you," said the robber who had thus far done the talking. "You white folks is rich, an' we black ones is pore. You've got money, an' we aint got none."
"And you want us to give you some, I suppose," added Marcy, putting his hand into his pocket and drawing forth the small buckskin purse in which he carried his change. "There's my pile. How much have you, mother?"
"Look a-here!" exclaimed the man, forgetting himself in his rage and speaking in his ordinary tone of voice. "That won't go down. You've got more, an' we know it; an' if you don't trot it out without no more of this foolishness——"
"So far as I know, these purses contain every cent of money there is in the house or about it," interrupted Marcy, taking both the articles in question in his hand and extending them toward the robber. "The darkies may have some, but if they have I don't know it."
With a muttered curse the man hit Marcy's hand a heavy blow and sent the purses flying to the farthest corner of the room. He expended so much strength in the blow that he almost pulled the boy from his seat on the sofa, and drew an involuntary exclamation of surprise and indignation from his mother.
"Look a-here, ole woman! You'll say 'Oh, my dear boy!' a good many times afore we uns is done with you if you don't trot out that money," declared the robber, in savage tones. "We know jes what we're doing, an' you might as well give in without wasting no more time over it. Where is it? I ask you for the last time."
"It is in those purses," replied Marcy. "If you want it, go and pick them up. You knocked them there."
"We'll take some of that there sass out of you in two minutes by the watch," snarled the robber, glancing up at the heavy chandelier which, depended from the center of the high ceiling. "Where's that rope, Jim? Do you reckon that there thing will pull out or not?"
"What are you ruffians going to do?" gasped Mrs. Gray, when she saw the man Jim pull a rope from his pocket.
"We're going to see if we can choke some sense into this boy of yourn," was the answer. "If you don't want to see him hung up afore your face an' eyes, make him tell where that money is. We uns have got to have it afore you see the last of us."