Having opened each package with great care and laid out their contents upon a log near by, the Imp approached the ruined building with signs of the most elaborate caution, and gave three loud, double knocks. Now casting my eyes about, I espied a short, heavy stick, and picking it up, poised it in my hand ready in the event of possible contingencies.
The situation was decidedly unpleasant, I confess, for I expected nothing less then to be engaged in a desperate hand-to-hand struggle within the next few minutes; therefore, I waited in some suspense, straining my eyes to wards the shadows with my fingers clasped tight upon my bludgeon.
Then all at once I saw a shape, ghostly and undefined, flit swiftly from the gloom of the boat-house, and next moment a convict was standing beside the Imp, gaunt and tall and wild-looking in the moonlight. His hideous clothes, stained with mud and the green slime of his hiding-places, hung upon him in tatters, and his eyes, deep-sunken in his pallid face, gleamed with an unnatural brightness as he glanced swiftly about him—a miserable, hunted creature, worn by fatigue, and pinched with want and suffering.
"Did ye get 'em, sonny?" he inquired, in a hoarse, rasping voice.
"Aye, aye, comrade," returned the Imp; "all's well!"
"Bless ye for that, sonny!" he exclaimed, and with the words he fell to upon the food devouring each morsel as it was handed to him with a frightful voracity, while his burning, restless eyes glared about him, never still for a moment.
Now as I noticed his wasted form and shaking limbs, I knew that I could master him with one hand. My weapon slipped from my slackened grasp, but at the sound, slight though it was, he turned and began to run. He had not gone five yards, however, when he tripped and fell, and before he could rise I was standing over him. He lay there at my feet, perfectly still, blinking up at me with red-rimmed eyes.
"All right, master," he said at last; "you've got me!" But with the words he suddenly rolled himself towards the river, yet as he struggled to his knees I pinned him down again.
"Oh, sir! you won't go for to give me up to them?" he panted. "I've never done you no wrong. For God's sake don't send me back to it again, sir."
"'Course not," cried the Imp, laying his hand upon my arm; "this is only Uncle Dick. He won't hurt you, will you, Uncle Dick?"