"I hope so," answered his companion, drily. "But come, we must not lose time. This is too heavy for one of us to carry; and yet we have not found a quarter of what we expected. Sally, my love, fetch us some cloths, or handkerchiefs, or something. We may as well divide the money now, and each man carry his own."
So saying, he poured the mingled heap of gold and silver on the table; and as soon as some cloths were procured to wrap it in, he proceeded to divide it with his hand into four parts, saying, "Share and share alike!"
Some opposition was made to this by the man who had accompanied him in the more active part of the night's work, and who declared that he did not think that the person who only kept watch, or the woman either, deserved to be put on the same footing with themselves, who had encountered the whole danger. He was at once, however, sternly overruled by Harding whose character seemed to have undergone a strange change amidst the fiery, though brief period of intense passions through which he had just passed. The softer metal had been tempered into hard steel; but when for a moment he removed the crape from his face, to give himself more air, it was pale, anxious, and haggard; and had a look of sickened disgust withal, that was not in harmony with his tone.
Carefully though rapidly, he rendered the several lots as nearly equal as the mere measurement of the eye would permit, bade his comrades each take that which he liked, and contented himself with the one they left. The necessity of haste, or rather the apprehensiveness of guilt, made them all eager to abridge every proceeding; and the money being tied up, and a large sum in notes divided, they prepared to depart.
"Had we better go out by the back door or the front?" demanded Harding, turning to the woman.
"Oh, la! by the front, to be sure!" she replied. "The hind who lives in the cottage on the lea opposite, might see us if we went out by the back. Nobody can see us come out in the lane, unless some one be wandering about."
"We must take our chance of that!" replied Harding and putting out the light, he led the way to the door.
CHAPTER XX.
"And now, my dear William," said Sir Sidney Delaware, as soon as Mr. Tims had departed, and the rolling wheels of his post-chaise were no longer heard grating down the western avenue--"and now, my dear William, lay your angry spirit. Depend upon it, that man carries with him a sufficient punishment in the disappointment he has suffered. He is one of that class of rogues for whom the old Athenians, finding no appropriate corporeal infliction, decreed the punishment of the Stela; or, in other words, ordered their names and infamy to be engraved upon a pillar, and thus held them up to shame forever."
"As our law has no such just award," replied Captain Delaware, "I should certainly have had great pleasure in writing his shame on his back with a horsewhip instead; but of course as you did not like it, I forbore."