"See what?" and then ensued a sound of shuffling and scraping, as if the whole party was crowding to the side of the bridge.
"Why yes, for sure we does," said the native of the place, and whom Ruth recognized by his voice to be a workman in the malt-yard named Barber. "I doubt if each on us had but one eye apiece, like the measter's, we could see the moon a shoinin' on the stream."
Ruth breathed again.
"But there is no moon. 'Tis gone."
"Starlight, then."
"That is too faint to cast any such reflections," objected Colonel Walcot. "And see how it flashes: there! close up against the steps, as bright and sharp as forked lightning."
"Or a silver serpent," put in another voice.
"Or an eel," laughed Lord Howard; "come, colonel, let's push on."
"Nay, nay, bide a minute," cried another voice, which Ruth knew to belong to the foreman of the malting-yard. "The colonel's grace is right. There is summat lyin' in the stream. And 'tis nayther fire nor fish, and if I might be speakin' out my moind afore your lordship's worship, I should say as 'tis for all the world like a swoord, or one o' they skewer sort o' murdrous wepn's—"
"A rapier do you mean?" said Howard.