"But where are they all?" persisted Goodenough.
"Ah!" impatiently said Rumsey, "down below."
"Down below!" gasped Goodenough. "Oughtn't we to be there along with them, colonel? They'd no business to go leaving us all alone;" and the sheriff shivered—"Eh, ought they now? Let's be going too, shall we?" and Goodenough rose to his feet, and began stumbling in his haste to reach the door, over the disorder of chairs and footstools. "I'd rather, I would indeed."
"Too late," said Rumsey. "They're ever so far by now. Serves you right, sheriff. Who ever heard of being caught napping when there's work of this sort on hand? Come, now—steady there—come. It's of no earthly use your rattling the bolts about like that. The captain's locked us in."
"No, no, he hasn't," said Goodenough frantically, wrenching at the ponderous door till he dragged it half open. "See!"
"The mischief seize you!" savagely returned Rumsey, snatching off Goodenough's hands, and banging to the door again with a kick "Not that one. The door, I mean, down at the stairfoot. 'Tis locked, I tell you. Double, triple locked; and you can't get out if you tore your arms off trying."
"But never mind," he went on, as Goodenough fell back despairingly against the wall, "don't look so down in the mouth, man; ain't I here?" and with a low chuckle of amusement at the poor man's discomfiture, he flung himself into a chair, and thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, sat watching through his half-closed eyelids every movement of his companion, who retreated slowly to a chair standing farthermost from Rumsey, and sat down on its edge, looking the very picture of wretchedness and despondency. "'Tis too bad," he said shiveringly, "I wish I hadn't come. I wish I'd never—" Then he stopped short.
"Well?" sharply interrogated Rumsey, fixing the unfortunate man's wandering glances with the steady, piercing, snakelike glitter of his own. "Say on, sheriff, out with it; you wish you'd never—joined this conspir—this society; is that it?"
A faltering tongue.
"I said nothing of the sort, Master Rumsey," faltered Goodenough. "But I—I—I do say—h'm. No matter;" and as his eyes followed Rumsey's, which were fixed on the dagger upon the table, he relapsed into silence.