'He little dreams that I can enter his very chamber at any hour. Oh! coward, fool, dolt, that I have been, to delay my just revenge on the word of that old pirate. I believe him,—some paid minion of this proud man; for he has them in every guise, perhaps the very appointment made three years ago in the West Indies, was a trap, perhaps,—even this clod is a spy and accomplice;' he took a pistol from an inner pocket and cocking it, pressed it to the ear of his companion. 'Tom,' said he, 'if I thought you would betray me.' The ruffian possessed that brute indifference to danger too often mistaken for true courage,—he did not tremble, though a slight paleness was visible on his repulsive countenance as he felt the touch of the iron barrel. 'Whoy! Measter Horace,' said he, 'didn't you save moy old mawther from being drowned by the boys vor a witch, noa, noa,—I be true, and hate yearl and lawyer, and all the great volk.'
'I believe you,' said the other, replacing the pistol, 'but' he began to mutter indistinctly, took a few steps in a wild, uncertain way;—'I feel dizzy,—d——nation,' he staggered to a seat and dropped his head upon the piece of rock that served them for a table;—the opiate had done its work.
Curly Tom cautiously arose, and walking up to him, looked upon him long and steadily, listening to the heavy breathing,—he wished to remove his arms, but the position Hunter was lying in, prevented his doing so. The ruffian felt no remorse; it was true that Hunter had saved the wretch's mother from being abused and ill-treated, perhaps murdered, by the superstitious villagers: true that he had regularly allowed the poor old woman support till her death,—while her ruffian son was pursuing his career of crime,—but the villain knew his own neck was in danger, and being conscious of perfidy, now hated Hunter for his momentary suspicion. As he leaned over the insensible man, his light, bleary eyes gleaming with ferocious satisfaction, his lank, shambling figure, and yellow, matted hair hanging in elf locks round his sharp visage, he looked like an unclean bird of prey hovering over a carcase. And a carcase it was over which he bent his head; dead now to every honorable hope, worse than useless to his kind, a hunted outcast, a mass of decaying matter, kept alive only by the fiery hope of vengeance that burnt within. The ruffian had hitherto been faithful, and procured Hunter those necessaries that he could not venture in quest of himself, for he was a deserter from that service, which kidnaps men to do its work, and hunts down the poor slaves when they escape, even in the land whose inhabitants are singing, 'Britons ever will be free.' Bitter, mockery of freedom. Curly Tom now held up his hand, and cautiously the officers emerged from their hiding place, slowly they came forward, anticipating an easy capture; they were mistaken. The opiate, as it frequently does on excitable natures, had only partially stupefied him, and the first effect wearing off, it now began to act as a stimulant;—the officers had traversed about half the distance to the rock on which Hunter's head reclined, when he started up and looked wildly around him,—for a moment he seemed stupefied, and passed his hand before his face as if to assure himself he was not dreaming—the officers rushed forward. He saw it all now,—he drew a pistol, but Curly Tom threw his long arms round him,—too late to prevent the explosion, however. The ball whizzed by the side of the foremost officer, and struck the agent in the leg—he fell. Curly Tom possessed more strength than his lank figure promised,—but Hunter, thoroughly sobered by his danger; tore his hold away, and striking the ruffian a tremendous blow with the butt end of the discharged pistol, felled him to the ground,—and snatching a knife from the rock close at hand, stabbed the foremost officer to the heart,—he fell with a heavy groan, and the next moment the remaining officer, a man of herculean strength had closed upon him. Terrible was now the struggle—the officer had dexterously struck the knife from his hand as he closed with him, but he could not draw his pistols. Locked in each other's grasp they wrestled together for life: each one well knew that death would be the lot of the vanquished,—the officer burning to revenge his comrade's death:—Hunter struggling for life and his cherished vengeance. Gradually they approached the spot where the agent sat watching the conflict with terrible anxiety, so absorbing as to make him forgetful of the pain of his wound; here, by a tremendous effort the officer succeeded in throwing his antagonist; falling, however, with him. Hunter made desperate efforts to rise, but getting within reach of the agent in the struggle, Lambert seized his hair, and held his head firmly down; to master his hands now, and slip a pair of handcuffs over his wrists, was, to the powerful and practised officer, the work of a moment,—and furious with passion, but exhausted by the struggle, Hunter lay upon the earth, a captive.
'A game fellow,' said the officer, wiping the perspiration from his brow, 'and strong as a bear, but I've tackled as tough hands as him in my day, and so has poor Bill Maddox there. I hope the Earl will settle a good pension on his widow—it will be sad news for her and her four poor children:—stone dead. He took the famous highwayman, Jack Blount summut in this way, five years ago. Well, he's gone, and as the tide is coming in, we had best be smart. That shot was unlucky for you, Mr. Lambert, but such accidents will happen. You behaved beautifully. I'm blowed if I thought you so fly to these things. Poor Bill—we can't move him until next tide, but sea-water can't hurt him now. I must rouse this chuckle-headed yokel and get him to help me.' So saying, the veteran thief-catcher lighted a dark lantern, and taking some water sprinkled it freely over the head and face of Curly Tom. The fellow returned to consciousness, and gazed around him—a look of ferocious joy animated his eyes, as he saw that Hunter was taken, and drinking the brandy he had reserved unmixed in the cup, he professed his readiness to help them.
Leaving him to guard the prisoner, first, however, removing Hunter's remaining pistol, and even securing the discharged one, the sturdy official took the wounded agent on his back, and crept out of the cavern. He soon returned, and with Tom's assistance removed Hunter also, who now from the combined effects of exhaustion, liquor and the opiate, was fast becoming insensible. Leaving one of his pistols with the agent, in case of treachery on the part of Tom, he once more returned, and taking off the outer clothing of the dead man, fastened a cord to his feet, and tied it firmly round a piece of rock near by. He was too used to scenes of blood to shed a tear, but he shook the dead man's hand and said, 'Poor Bill,' as he quitted the cave. His precautions with regard to Tom were unneeded. The ruffian's hatred had been aroused by Hunter's suspicion, and confirmed by the blow. Nor did he refuse to start to Erith for assistance to convey the prisoner and the wounded man there. He had been assured by the agent that no harm should come to him, protected by the powerful influence of the nobleman; and to allow himself to be captured had been part of the plan from the first. He had not sense enough to know that the heavier crime of murder, now laying upon the soul of the unfortunate man, did away with the necessity of his appearing as a witness, as it had been done in the presence of Mr. Lambert and the officer, and they were both too wise to undeceive him. Indeed the wily agent had determined, now that the service was rendered, to sacrifice his ruffianly tool, as his presence might be troublesome. Tom soon returned with a posse of police officers and a cart, to convey the prisoner and the wounded. A surgeon was with them, who dressed Mr. Lambert's wound temporarily, and pronounced it trifling, and the party departed—Tom going with them as a voluntary prisoner.
Great were the encomiums bestowed upon the officer by his brother official, for his conduct and bravery, and the agent also came in for his share of praise—and the whole party were in high glee at the result, which brought one poor hunted human being under the dread ban of the law, while he whose lust had driven him to crime revelled in luxury, and mingled with the fair and good, courted and caressed by those who would have shrunk from expressing any sympathy for the poor victims of his pride. Weep, angels, weep! and devils, shout for joy! Hell has no minister so powerful as the proud man's lust.
It may be as well to mention here at once, that the agent, pursuing his plan of getting rid of Curly Tom, much to that worthy's astonishment, pressed the charge of highway robbery against him, before the trial of Hunter, which was postponed through the influence of the Earl, which was indirectly exerted also to procure the condemnation of his base tool; and so it came to pass, that after a trial, which was a mere form—for the seaman's bare deposition, which Mr. Lambert had taken, was admitted as evidence—the good citizens of Canterbury being in want of a little excitement, that interesting individual performed a dance upon nothing, in company with a sheep-stealer and a forger, for their especial behoof, one fine day in September, under the personal superintendence of that accomplished artist, Mr. John Ketch, in the presence of a highly respectable and numerous audience, who all retired to their homes in peace, much gratified with the exhibition, and duly impressed with a deep sense of the blessing of being permitted to vegetate under the protection of a government so wise in its councils, so strong in execution, and so paternal in its care for the morals of the people. So said the newspapers next day; and thus ended the career of a heartless ruffian, it is true, but who had ever sought to make him otherwise?
To proceed with our tale. Day was now fast breaking; and as the cortege moved away with their prisoner, two horsemen appeared on the cliffs above, and dismounting, watched the party with eager but disappointed looks. They were the old seaman and Edward Barnett, the village landlady's eccentric nephew.
'A plague upon my awkward riding,' said the seaman, 'we are too late! They have taken him, and that rascal too with him! Fool that he was to place any confidence in such a hound.'
'He had been kind to Tom's mother,' said Edward, 'and he supposed that gratitude.'