"My pursuers come! They begin to suspect the trick that I have played them!—they now know—or think they know, that I have turned upon my route. They come—they come!"
"Oh, give me the child! I swear to you that I will hide you to the utmost of my means; but give me the child!"
"Not yet."
The woman looked at him in an agony of tears.
"Listen to me," she said. "If they discover you it will not be my fault, nor the fault of this little innocent—you feel that! Ah! then tell me upon what principle of justice can you take its life?"
"I will be just," said Todd. "All I ask of you is, to hide me to the best of your ability, and to keep secret the fact of my presence here. If, after you have done all that, you still find that I am taken, it will be no fault of yours. I do not ask impossibilities of any one, nor do I threaten punishment against you for not performing improbable feats. Come in—come in at once! They come—they come! Do you not hear them now?"
It was quite evident now that a number of persons were approaching, and beating the bushes as they came on. The tread of a horse's feet, too, upon the road convinced Todd that among his foes, now, was the mounted man whom he had seen, and whom he thought he saw point to him as he lay crouching down behind the hedge, half hidden in the ditch.
With the little child still in his arms, he rushed into the cottage, and the woman followed him, wringing her hands with terror. And yet Todd was gentle with the child. He knew that from the mother he had everything to hope, and everything to dread, and he did not wish to drive her to despair by any display of harshness to the little one.
"This way," she cried, "this way," as she led the way into an inner-room. "There is a cupboard here in which you can conceal yourself. If they do not search the house, they will not find you, and I will do all that I can to prevent them."
"That will do," said Todd; "but, remember, I will have the child near me, so that upon the least symptom of treachery from you, I can put it to death; and I shall not, under any circumstances, at all scruple so to do. Where is this cupboard that you speak of?"