"Hold!" cried Henry, "you are my prisoner."
With the most imperturbable coolness in the world, Sir Francis Varney turned upon him, and replied,—
"And pray, Henry Bannerworth, what have I done to provoke your wrath?"
"What have you done?—have you not, like a thief, broken into my house? Can you ask what you have done?"
"Ay," said the vampyre, "like a thief, perchance, and yet no thief. May I ask you, what there is to steal, in the house?"
By the time this short dialogue had been uttered, the rest of the party had come up, and Varney was, so far as regarded numbers, a prisoner.
"Well, gentlemen," he said, with that strange contortion of countenance which, now they all understood, arose from the fact of his having been hanged, and restored to life again. "Well, gentlemen, now that you have beleaguered me in such a way, may I ask you what it is about?"
"If you will step aside with me, Sir Francis Varney, for a moment," said Dr. Chillingworth, "I will make to you a communication which will enable you to know what it is all about."
"Oh, with pleasure," said the vampyre. "I am not ill at present; but still, sir, I have no objection to hear what you have to say."
He stepped a few paces on one side with the doctor, while the others waited, not without some amount of impatience for the result of the communication. All that they could hear was, that Varney said, suddenly—