“The Captain will have a high opinion of you, Ma’am,” Levi continued in an oily tone that made me long to wring his neck. “If you’ll be bidden by me, you will allow me to offer you a sup of Kentucky whisky. It’s the queen of liquors to bring the color back to your cheeks.”
She did not decline the offer; no doubt she needed support. He put a cloak on the box and she sat down with her back to me, either to play her part the better, or because she could not bear to face me. None the less could I picture the ordeal through which she was passing! Levi, fussing about her, brought out a bottle and drawing the corn-cob cork poured some of the spirit into a small bowl. She drank it and said something to him in a low voice.
“Pete is saddling his horse now,” he answered. “He’s a mighty good man in the saddle, and he’ll not spare his spurs. He’ll take the message! But we shall need a piece of the fur to prove that the bear is trapped. Here you,” he went on truculently, turning to me, “You are in our power and we are going to hold you as a hostage for Wilmer. Do you understand? If your folks hang him, we shall hang you! Do you see? Have I spoken plainly, sir?”
“Plainly enough,” I said. “But you must be very foolish if you think that that will do Captain Wilmer any good; if you think that a threat of that kind will make Lord Rawdon hold his hand.”
“D—n my lord and his hand!” he retorted coarsely; and he spat on the floor. “My lord will decide as he pleases. But as he decides, you, Major, will hang or go free. So, by your leave do you write and tell your folks what I say.”
“If I write,” I replied, “I shall tell his lordship to do his duty.”
“Major,” he answered. “Do you see that fire? We have means to persuade you and if you try us too far—”
“I shall not write,” I said. “If I write those are my terms. That is what I shall write. But if it’s only proof that I am in your hands that you require, take my ring. It will be known and will do what you want. Only I warn you, my friend, that the man who carries the message will slip his neck into a noose.”
“Do you think that we don’t know that!” Levi replied, grinning. “We need no Philadelphia lawyer to teach us our business. This country is ours—ours, Englishman, and it is going to remain ours. We have ten friends where King George has one, and we shall know how to place your ring where we want it. Many is the time that I’ve laughed to think of Wilmer fighting your quails for you, and you putting on the money, and your bird not worth a continental cent!”
The girl raised her head. She said something that I could not hear.