"You three devils, mark my words. If you are alive one week from to-day, I give you leave to play this game over again."
"We will live to see you dance on nothing, anyhow," sneered the mongrel.
"That's enough for to-night," interrupted Henry Reeves, the juror who had so suddenly taken a leading part in the proceedings, pressing forward and laying his hand upon Poynter's shoulder. "Come, you will stay in the 'long-room' to-night, and to prevent you from sleeping uneasily, I will add that you will be hung to-morrow, for murder."
"Thank you for nothing!" curtly replied the prisoner. "I have you to thank for this favor, and look you, it's a debt that will be paid; yes, paid, and with compound interest added," said Poynter.
"Oh, I'll credit you," laughed Reeves. "I always was accommodating. But in with you," he added, giving him a rude shove as they entered the room.
Poynter would have fallen had not he been caught by Jack Fyffe, who whispered:
"Ef you hyar a rumpus outside, don't be 'larmed, 'cause it'll on'y be fri'nds. Mind an' keep awake."
A pressure of the hand told that Poynter understood his meaning, and then, after being bound, the prisoner was left alone in the room. Some half a dozen guards were posted around the building, with instructions to shoot him if he attempted an escape; and then the vigilantes separated, each man wending his way homeward, pondering upon what they had already done, and the duty that awaited them on the morrow.
The guards were in high glee, and having each one managed to procure a flask of liquor from the obliging host, determined to enjoy their watch to the best of their ability. Polk Redlaw, however, owing to the mishaps his devoted head had met with, was not in such a jolly mood, and kept apart from the other sentinels.
They were gathered in couples upon either side of the building, thus surrounding the place and preventing either egress or ingress without their knowledge. They little dreamed of the fate that awaited them.