Jacob Gray would have almost fallen dead in the street with fright, had he imagined for one moment the predicament he was in—but, on the contrary, he went on applauding himself upon his own cleverness; and, perhaps, never had he felt so satisfied of his superiority in point of cunning over all his enemies than he did that night.
“I shall yet, after all that is past,” he thought, “receive a large sum of money, and be an independent man, while I adequately punish all who have given me uneasiness. The only men I cannot crush are the scoundrels who robbed me after my little adventure with Vaughan. I see no ready way of being revenged upon them, and my only consolation is that, sooner or later, they are sure to come to the gallows.”
Hugging himself with his idea, although, metaphorically speaking, he, Gray, may be said to have had the rope then about his neck, the villain passed on by the low swampy bit of ground on which the Penitentiary is now built.
He then paused a few moments, as if in doubt which way he should go next, and Albert Seyton crouched down by some timber which lay upon the ground, while Sir Francis Hartleton’s man drew back into the shadow of some irregular small, wretched dwellings which stood near the water’s edge.
Gray did not keep them long in suspence, for after a slight reflection, he determined upon adopting his favourite plan of reaching home, with, at all events, the nearest approach to a certainty of not being followed, namely, by water. He accordingly walked down to some stairs by the river side, passing within arm’s length of Albert, and jumped into a wherry in which was a boy lying fast asleep.
Gray awoke the boy roughly, and when, with a bewildered look, he gazed into the face of his visitor, Gray said,—
“Can you row me to the stairs, by Burlington House in the Strand?”
“Yes, master,” said the boy, as he began unmooring the wherry.
Gray seated himself in the stem of the boat in silence, and pulling his cravat over his chin, he with a smile muttered,—
“Humph—Squire Learmont, Jacob Gray is one too many for you. The day of independence and revenge will come for me soon.”