“Look here, you are making fools of yourselves,” cried Amos Sanderson. “Send me to Naples, and I will bring back the money. I see that you are in earnest, and I will keep my word.”
Again there was a whispered conference. Then the interpreter spoke again.
“My friends do not trust you,” he said. “You would not return.”
Sanderson wished to argue the question, but the interpreter silenced him by an imperative gesture.
“No words of yours can alter our purpose,” he said. “We have been more lenient with you than with most of our prisoners. We have given you seven days to get the money for your ransom, and it is not here. We have no time to waste. What is to be done must be done quickly.”
“There seems no help for it, Bernard,” said the Englishman.
Within five minutes the three captives, with hands tied, were bound to trees, and with blanched faces awaited the fatal volley from the three bandits, who stationed themselves at the distance of twenty paces fronting them.
Bernard gave himself up for lost when something unexpected happened. He heard shots, and for the moment thought they came from the pistols of their intended murderers. But to his astonishment it was the robber opposite him who fell. Another shot and another and the other two fell, fatally wounded. Then a party of soldiers came dashing forward, accompanied by a man whose face looked familiar to Bernard.
“Mr. Penrose!” he exclaimed.
“Yes, Bernard, it is I. I was robbed by these men a month since. I tracked them, and I have at last brought them to justice.”