As the captain entered his quarters the sentinel at the door inquired if he had met Mrs. Flanagan, and added that she had passed there filling the air with threats against her tormentors at the “Hotel?” and inquiring for the captain in search of redress. Lawton heard the man in astonishment, appeared struck with a new idea—walked several yards towards the orchard, and returned again; for several minutes he paced rapidly to and fro before the door of the house, and hastily entering it, he threw himself on a bed in his clothes and was soon in a profound sleep.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE DOUBLE WARNING.
While his comrades were sleeping in perfect forgetfulness of their hardships and dangers, the slumbers of Dunwoodie were broken and unquiet. After spending a night of restlessness he arose, unrefreshed, from the rude bed where he had thrown himself in his clothes, and without awaking any of the group around him he wandered into the open air in search of relief. In this disturbed state of mind the major wandered through the orchard, and was stopped in his walk by arriving at the base of those rocks which had protected the Skinners in their flight, before he was conscious whither his steps had carried him. He was about to turn and retrace his path to his quarters, when he was startled by a voice, bidding him—
“Stand or die!”
Dunwoodie turned in amazement, and beheld the figure of a man placed at a distance above him on a shelving rock with a musket levelled at himself. The light was not sufficiently powerful to reach the recesses of that gloomy spot, and a second look was necessary before he discovered, to his astonishment, that the peddler stood before him. Comprehending in an instant the danger of his situation, and disdaining to implore mercy or retreat, had the latter been possible, the youth cried firmly:
“If I am to be murdered, fire! I will never become your prisoner.”
“No, Major Dunwoodie,” said Birch, lowering his musket, “it is neither my intention to capture nor to slay.”
“What then would you have, mysterious being?” said Dunwoodie, hardly able to persuade himself that the form he saw was not a creature of the imagination.