I set my teeth as I listened, and I felt that I might be able to persuade Uncle Zabdiel to a different purpose.
"The difficulty will be to get hold of him," said Martha Leach. "I only heard the real story, as I have told you, from the lips of his fellow-prisoner—the man they call George Rabbit."
"Then the best thing you can do," said Uncle Zabdiel, touching her for a moment on the arm, "the wisest thing you can do, is to get hold of George Rabbit and send him to me. Tell him I'll pay him well; it'll be a question of 'set a thief to catch a thief.' He'll track the dog down. Tell him I'll pay him liberally—I'm known as a liberal man in my dealings."
While he went to the door to show the woman out, I crept round the corner of the stairs, and up to the room where I had left the boy. I found him awaiting me eagerly; it was pleasant to see the fashion in which his gaunt face lighted up when I set out the food upon the bed. He was so greedy with famine that he began to cram the food into his mouth—almost whimpering over the good things—before I had had time to begin.
We feasted well, sitting there in the dark; we were very still as we heard Zabdiel Blowfield pause at the door on his way upstairs, and listen to be sure that all was silent. Fortunately for us, he did not come in; we heard his shuffling feet take their way towards his own room.
"Safe for the night!" I whispered. "And now I suppose you feel better—eh?"
He nodded gratefully. "I wish I'd got your courage," he answered wistfully. "But when he looks at me I begin to tremble, and when he speaks I shake all over."
"Go to sleep now," I commanded him, "and comfort yourself with the reflection that in the morning he is going to do the shaking and the trembling for once. Bless your heart!" I added, "I was once like you, and dared not call my soul my own. I'll have no mercy on him, I promise you."
He smiled and lay down, and was asleep in no time at all. I had removed the dishes from the bed, meaning to take them downstairs so soon as I could be sure that Uncle Zabdiel was asleep. I sat down on a chair by the open window, and looked out into the night, striving perhaps to see some way for myself—some future in which I might live in some new and wholly impossible world.
Most bitterly then did I think of the girl who was lost to me for ever. My situation had not seemed to be so desperate while I carried the knowledge in my heart that she believed in me and trusted me; but now all that was past and done with. In the morning I must begin that fight with my ancient enemy as to whether I should live, or whether I should be condemned to that living death from which I had escaped; and I knew enough now, in this calmer moment, to recognise the cunning of the man with whom I must fight, and that the power he held was greater than mine.