She seemed to consider.
"He was rather tall and very broad, with a big red beard. He had a cloth cap on the back of his head; his coat over his arm; and he carried a huge stick--about as undesirable-looking a person to encounter on a lonely road as you could very well imagine. I should know him anywhere if I saw him again. Do you recognise him from my description?"
"I do not. I heard nothing of any man speaking, the voice I heard was a woman's."
"Of course it was; I tell you that that was me imitating Nannie. Don't you understand?"
"It was neither your voice nor Nannie's. It was one I have heard too often, and know too well, ever to mistake for another. I could have sworn it was hers; I could have sworn I heard her pronounce my name. I was not dreaming--I could not have been. That I should lie here, chained and helpless, and she almost within touch of me! Why didn't Nannie go down to the door?"
"Nannie?--she's as helpless as you are."
"Where are those two servants?"
"I sent them out on an errand long ago."
"So that you've had me at your mercy, and if it was her, you've had her also. That God should permit it! If you are lying to me--and I believe you can lie like truth!--may you soon be consigned to hell fire, to rot there to all eternity."
"If the worst comes to the worst, that's a trip on which I hope to follow you."