"Ay, we'll go farther than France!" one shrieked. "As for me I am off. I shall----"
"No, by God, you don't!" cried another; and flung himself, as it seemed to me, between him and the door. "You don't go and sell the rest of us, and save your own neck. You----"
"Where is Porter?" a third struck in.
"And Prendergast?"
"They are not here! Nor Sir William! Nor Friend! So what is the good of talking like that?"
"He will make a fat hang, will Sir William!" said one, with a mad laugh that died in his throat. "It will cure his gout."
At that, one of the others cried with furious oaths for liquor; and I judged that Ferguson gave them of his Hollands. But it was little among so many, and was gone in a moment, and they calling for more. "There is a keg upstairs," said he. "In the back-room. But get it for yourselves. You have hung me. To think that I should have played the game with such fools."
They laughed recklessly, a savage note in their voices. "Ay, you should have stuck to your pen, old fox," one cried. "Then it was only the printer hung. But we'll drink your health before you swing. Up, Keyes, and fetch the stuff. It may be bad, but we'll drink to the squeezing of the rotten orange once more; if it be the last toast I drink!"
[CHAPTER XXVII]
The terror that had gripped me on their first entrance, and driving all the blood in my body to my heart had there set it bounding madly--this terror I should vainly try to describe to persons who have never been in such a situation or within a few feet of death, as I then found myself. That, reckless and driven to the wall, the conspirators would sacrifice me to their vengeance if they discovered me I felt certain; and at any moment they might come up and discover me. Yet behind me were the confining walls of the rooms whence I knew of no exit, and before me, where alone evasion seemed to be possible, the open door of the room below, and the flood of light that issued from the doorway, forbade the attempt. I lay sweating and listening therefore, while they snarled and cursed in the black mood of men betrayed and hopeless; and yet because of the chance that after all they might go out as they had come, I could so far keep my terror within bounds.