“It will be guarded securely enough,” said the Captain, gruffly. He was beginning to find Leech intolerable. The last few days’ work had sickened him.
“I’ll soon have another prisoner,” said Leech as he passed the door where Jacquelin was confined.—He raised his voice so that it might be heard by those within the cells.—“And then we shall relieve you.”
“Well, I wish you’d do it quick, for I’m blanked tired of this business, I can tell you!” snapped the Captain.
“Oh, it won’t be long now. A day or two at most. We’ll have Allen, dead or alive. I had information to-day that will secure him. And the court will sit immediately to try them.”
The Captain made no answer, except a grunt. Leech puffed out his bosom.
“A soldier’s duty is to obey orders, Captain,” he said, sententiously.
The Captain turned on him suddenly, his red face redder than ever. “Look here, you bully these men down here who haven’t anybody to speak up for them; but don’t you be trying to teach me my duty, Mister Leech, or I’ll break your crooked neck, you hear?”
He looked so large and threatening that Leech fell back. In order to appease the ruffled officer and satisfy him that he was not a coward, Leech, just as he was leaving, said that he did not care for him to send guards up to his house that night, as he had been doing.
“All right.”