Conseltine smiled grimly.
‘Plunge in, man, wade to the other side, or swim to it! It’s not twenty yards from bank to bank.’
‘I should drown!’ cried the lawyer.
‘Better that than live to betray the man that has fed and kept you so many years. You talked of turning Queen’s evidence—go and do it!’
Feagus recoiled.
‘I didn’t mane it, Conseltine—’Twas only my little joke. For God’s sake, tell me what’s to be done!’
‘I neither know nor care,’ returned the other. ‘Perhaps it’s God’s vengeance upon us for what we’ve done. Are you afraid to die?’
Without replying, Feagus looked round in despair. The whole mountain-side seemed now descending on that portion of the valley where he stood, while the river wound round and round, between Blake’s Hall and the open moor by which they had gained the lonely vale. There was only one way of escape—to gain the opposite bank of the river.
‘Tell me this—if we escape out of this alive, do you mean to stand by me or to turn against me?’
‘To stand by ye, to stand by ye!’ cried Feagus.