Pompey rose, stretching his limbs, and obediently trotted after his deadly foe.
"Where's he takin' him to?" thought Katy. "He manes mischief, I'll be bound. The misthress is gone, and Master Frank's gone, and he thinks there ain't nobody to interfere. Katy O'Grady, you must go after him and see what he's up to."
Katy was in the midst of her work, but she didn't stop for that. She had in her hand a glass tumbler, which she had been in the act of wiping, but she didn't think to put it down. Throwing her apron over her head, she followed Mr. Craven at a little distance. He made his way into a field in the rear of the house. She went in the same direction, but on the other side of a stone wall which divided it from a neighboring field. From time to time she could catch glimpses, through the loosely laid rocks, of her employer, and she could distinctly hear what he was saying.
"My friend Pompey," he said, with a smile full of deadly meaning, "you are going to your death, though you don't know it. That was a bad job for you when you attacked me, my four-footed friend. You won't be likely to trouble me much longer."
"What's he going to do to him?" thought Katy; "it's not p'ison, for he hasn't got any meat. May be it's shootin' him he manes."
Mr. Craven went on.
"Poison doesn't seem to do you any harm, but I fancy you can't stand powder and ball quite so well."
"Yes, he's goin' to shoot him. What will I do?" thought Katy. "I'm afraid I can't save the poor creetur's life."
By this time Mr. Craven had got so far that he considered it very unlikely that the report of the pistol would be heard at the house. He stopped short, and, with a look of triumphant malice, drew the pistol from his pocket. Pompey stood still, and looked up in his face.
"How can he shoot the poor creetur, and him lookin' up at him so innocent?" thought Katy. "What will I do? Oh, I know—I'll astonish him a little."