'Here's at you,' looking at our hero who just then remembered that he had no charge left in his pistol; and like a jaguar he sprang at Roland's throat. But this brutal robber had no child now in hand; our hero was slight, but his sinews were elastic and reverberant; and they were as enduring as twisted steel. A fair hold was taken on either side, and it was a nice test of the respective powers of the combatants.
The robber was the heavier man by far, but the activity and the skill were upon the other side.
'I would put a pistol to his head,' the Lifter said,' but bad as he be he is my father.' There is no need to describe the rencontre, further than to say that After about a minute's fierce strife the chief vent down and Roland's knee was planted in his breast.
'Cords now,' he cried to the Lifter.
'I'll help to do the bindeen,' The Lifter replied cheerfully, and he did so. When his father was bound he stood before him and thus spoke:
'Father, I leave you to the mercy of the laws which you have all your life been a breakeen. I will try to get out of the country and go to the States; there I hope to become an honest man. I do not think that I deserve to suffer, because in breakeen the law I did not know I was do'een wrong. You deserve to suffer because you broke them knoween it was evil, and you brought me up to break them, which was worst of all. So I leave you, capteen. In a little while the law will come here and catch you. I will not cry when I hear of your swingeen.' The unfilial convert then joined Roland and the two quickening their pace soon overtook Nancy and Aster.
CHAPTER XIII.
'ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.'
When the turmoil and the hideous danger was over, it was very sweet for these two lovers to sit alone and talk about the past. She had received his letter, and marvelled what he meant when he spoke of being detained in some place 'so near and yet so far.'
'Did you, my darling,' he asked her, as he held her hand, with its crooked little finger—which small deformity I always take as a sign of gentle blood—in his, 'care for me on that day that separated us for all this bitter time?'