“Mr Hazlit!” gasped Edgar.
The merchant bounded at our hero with the fury of a wild cat, and would have quickly laid him beside the pirate if he had not leaped actively aside. A small tree received the blow meant for him, and the merchant passed on with another yell, “To the rescue!”
Of course Edgar followed, but the bush paths were intricate. He unfortunately turned into a wrong one, when the fugitive was for a moment hidden by a thicket, and immediately lost all trace of him.
Meanwhile Rooney Machowl, hearing the merchant’s shout, turned aside to respond to it. He met Mr Hazlit right in the teeth, and, owing to his not expecting an assault, had, like Edgar, well-nigh fallen by the hand of his friend. As it was, he evaded the huge club by a hair’s-breadth, and immediately gave chase to the maniac—for such the poor gentleman had obviously become. But although he kept the fugitive for some time in view, he failed to come up with him owing to a stumble over a root which precipitated him violently on his nose. On recovering his feet Mr Hazlit was out of sight.
Rooney, caressing with much tenderness his injured nose, now sought to return to his friends, but the more he tried to do so, the farther he appeared to wander away from them.
“Sure it’s a quare thing that I can’t git howld of the road I comed by,” he muttered, as with a look of perplexity he paused and listened.
Faint shouts were heard on his left, and he was about to proceed in that direction, when distinct cries arose on his right. He went in that direction for a time, then vacillated, and, finally, came to a dead stand, as well as to the conclusion that he had missed his way; which belief he stated to himself in the following soliloquy:—
“Rooney, me boy, you’ve gone an’ lost yoursilf. Ah, bad scran to ’ee. Isn’t it the fulfilment of your grandmother’s owld prophecy, that you’d come to a bad ind at last? It’s little I’d care for your misfortin myself, if it warn’t that you ought to be helpin’ poor Mr Hazlit, who’s gone as mad as blazes, an’ whose daughter can’t be far off. Och! Man alive,” he added, with sudden enthusiasm, “niver give in while there’s a purty girl in the case!”
Under the impulse of this latter sentiment, Rooney started off at a run in a new and totally unconsidered direction, which, strange to say, brought him into sudden and very violent contact with some of those individuals in whom he was interested.
Here we must, in hunters’ language, “hark back” on our course for a few minutes—if, indeed, that be hunters’ language! We do not profess to know much thereof, but the amiable reader will understand our meaning.