“Uncle Bob told me Mr. Mahaffy got hurt in a duel, grandfather?” said Hannibal.
“He was as inexperienced as a child in the use of firearms, and he had to deal with scoundrels who had neither mercy nor generous feeling—but his courage was magnificent.”
Presently Hannibal was deep in his account of those adventures he had shared with Miss Betty.
“And Miss Malroy—where is she now?” asked the judge, in the first pause of the boy's narrative.
“She's at Mr. Bowen's house. Mr. Carrington and Mr. Cavendish are here too. Mrs. Cavendish stayed down yonder at the Bates' plantation. Grandfather, it were Captain Murrell who had me stole—do you reckon he was going to take me back to Mr. Bladen?”
“I will see Miss Malroy in the morning. We must combine—our interests are identical. There should be hemp in this for more than one scoundrel! I can see now how criminal my disinclination to push myself to the front has been!” said the judge, with conviction. “Never again will I shrink from what I know to be a public duty.”
A little later they went down-stairs, where the judge had Yancy make up a bed for himself and Hannibal on the floor. He would watch alone beside Mahaffy, he was certain this would have been the dead man's wish; then he said good night and mounted heavily to the floor above to resume his vigil and his musings.
Just at daybreak Yancy was roused by the pressure of a hand on his shoulder, and opening his eyes saw that the judge was bending over him.
“Dress!” he said briefly. “There's every prospect of trouble—get your rifle and come with me!”
Yancy noted that this prospect of trouble seemed to afford the judge a pleasurable sensation; indeed, he had quite lost his former air of somber and suppressed melancholy.