The result was that Paul Bevan sneezed, and, sitting up, looked astonished.
“Ha! I thought that ’ud fetch you,” said the boy, with a grin. “Come, you’d better look alive if you don’t want to lose yer scalp.”
“Ho! ho!” exclaimed Bevan, rising with a sudden look of intelligence and staggering to the door, “here, give me the old sword, Betty, and the blunderbuss. Now then.”
He went out at the door, and Tom Brixton was following, when the girl stopped him.
“Oh! Mr Brixton,” she said, “do not kill any one, if you can help it.”
“I won’t if I can help it. But listen, Betty,” said the youth, hurriedly seizing the girl’s hand. “I have tried hard to speak with you alone to-day, to tell you that I am guilty, and to say good-bye for ever.”
“Guilty! what do you mean?” she exclaimed in bewildered surprise.
“No time to explain. I may be shot, you know, or taken prisoner, though the latter’s not likely. In any case remember that I confess myself guilty! God bless you, dear, dear girl.”
Without waiting for a reply, he ran to a hollow on the top of the mound where his friend and Tolly were already ensconced, and whence they could see every part of the clearing around the little fortress.
“I see the reptiles,” whispered Bevan, as Tom joined them. “They are mustering for an attack on the south side. Just what I wish,” he added, with a suppressed chuckle, “for I’ve got a pretty little arrangement of cod-hooks and man-traps in that direction.”