“Is it mock me, ye would, as well as rob me, ye foul-mouthed spalpeen, you?” he cried.
“I don’t want to rob you,” put in Charlie.
“Faith and I’ll see ye don’t,” retorted the Irishman.
“Listen to me an instant,” besought Charlie.
“The sorra a word. Ye shall say it all before the gineral the morrow, for there I’ll take ye.”
For some moments Charlie stood in this awkward fix, not daring to stir, or even to speak, and with every prospect of spending the night with a bayonet point within an inch of his body.
Suddenly, however, a brilliant idea occurred to him. If I really was his old watch, as he fancied, this man had possibly found me where Halliday had lost me.
It was a bare chance every way, but he determined to try it.
“So you are from Seatown!” he suddenly exclaimed.
The rifle literally dropped from the astonished sentry’s hand.