The men put their heads together, and there was some hurried whispering. At the next minute they had laid hold of Davy, bound him as Dan was bound, and put him to stand at Dan's side. This they did with the thought that Davy was now Dan's accomplice.
Then again they cast lots as before. This time the lot fell to Quilleash. He took his stand where the lad had stood, and put the trigger of the gun at cock.
"Men," he said, "if we don't take this man's life nothing will hould him but he'll take ours; and it's our right to protect ourselves, and the ould Book will uphold us. It isn't murder we're at, but justice, and Lord A'mighty ha' massy on their sowls!"
"Give him another chance," said Teare, and Quilleash, nothing loath, put his question again. Dan, with a glance at Davy, answered as before, with as calm a voice, though his face was blanched, and his eyes stood out from their sockets, and his lips and nostrils quivered.
Then there was silence, and then down on their knees behind Quilleash fell the three men, Crennel, Corkell, and Teare. "Lord ha' massy on their sowls!" they echoed, and Quilleash raised the gun.
Never a word more did Dan say, and never a cry or a sign came from Davy Fayle. But Quilleash did not fire. He paused and listened, and turning about he said, in an altered tone, "Where's the horse?"
The men lifted their heads and pointed, without speaking, to where the horse was tethered by the doorway. Quilleash listened with head aslant. "Then whose foot is that?" he said.
The men leapt to their feet. Teare was at the doorway in an instant. "God A'mighty, they're on us!" he said in an affrighted whisper.
Then two of the others looked, and saw that from every side the coroner and his men were closing in upon them. They could recognize every man, though the nearest was still half a mile away. For a moment they stared blankly in to each other's faces, and asked themselves what was to be done. In that moment every good and bad quality seemed to leap to their faces. Corkell and Crennell, seeing themselves outnumbered, fell to a bout of hysterical weeping. Teare, a fellow of sterner stuff, without pity or ruth, seeing no danger for them if Dan were out of sight, was for finishing in a twinkling what they had begun—shooting Dan, flinging him into the loft above, down the shaft outside, or into a manure-hole at the doorway, that was full of slimy filth and was now half-frozen over.
Quilleash alone kept his head, and when Teare had spoken the old man said, "No," and set his lip firm and hard. Then Dan himself, no less excited than the men themselves, called and asked how many they were that were coming. Crennell told him nine—seven men and the coroner, and another—it might be a woman—on a horse.