It was as follows.
"Dear Sir Richard.
"Todd has been here upon murderous thoughts intent. Poor Tobias has, I fear, broken a blood-vessel, and is in a most precarious condition. I leave all to you. The villain escaped, but is injured I think."
"Yours very faithfully,
"John Jeffery."
"To Sir Richard Blunt.
"Broken a blood-vessel," said Todd. "Ha! ha! Broken a blood-vessel. Ha! Then Tobias may yet be food for worms, and the meat of the pretty crawlers to the banquet. Ha!"
He walked on with quite a feeling of elation; and yet there was, as he came to think, a something—he could not exactly define what—about the tone of the letter, that began upon second thoughts to give him no small share of uneasiness.
The familiar way in which he was mentioned as Todd merely, without further description, argued some foregone conclusion. It seemed to say, Todd, the man whom we both know so well, and have our eyes upon.
Did it mean that? A cold perspiration broke out upon the forehead of the guilty wretch. What was he to think? What was he to do?
He read the letter again. It sounded much more unmeaning and strange now. He had at first been too much dazzled by the pleasant intelligence regarding Tobias, to comprehend fully the alarming tone of the epistle; but now it waked upon his imagination, and his brain soon became vexed and troubled.
"Off—off, and away," he muttered. "Yes, I must be off before the dawn. The interception of this letter saves me for some few hours. In the morning, the colonel will see Sir Richard Blunt, and then they will come to arrest me; but I shall be upon the German Ocean by then. Yes, the Hamburgh ship for me."