“Ah!”
“I have given him my parol, that he shall have safe conduct!”
I laughed, bade Nighthawk good-bye, and left him smiling as I had found him. In ten minutes I was again on the Brock road, riding on through the darkness, between the impenetrable thickets.
XXVI. — STUART SINGS.
My reflections were by no means gay. The scenes at the lonely house had not been cheerful and mirth-inspiring.
That grinning corpse, with the crust of bread in the bony fingers; that stain of blood on the floor; the grave of Achmed; lastly, the appointment of the mysterious Nighthawk with the Federal spy; all were fantastic and lugubrious.
Who was Nighthawk, and what was his connection with Mohun? Who was Mohun, and what had been his previous history? Who was this youth of unbounded wealth, as Nighthawk had intimated, in whose life personages supposed to be dead, but still alive, had figured?
“Decidedly, Mohun and Nighthawk are two enigmas!” I muttered, “and I give the affair up.”