"It is as much as thy life is worth not to tell me," boldly answered the adventurer. "Rememberest thou the tender mercies of our captain—the Indian burned alive at the stake; the mutineer crucified; the slave branded with red-hot irons; the——?"
"Hush!" cried the poor priest, his eyes almost starting from their sockets. "Thou makest my very blood run cold. Lean forward, and I will whisper it in thy ear—the very walls have ears in this place."
Herrick leaned forward, his eyes sparkling. The priest bent over to whisper to him. In my eagerness to hear, I leaned forward further—further over the edge of the ledge, and Dame Fortune, with a twist of her wheel, turned the propitious fates aside. For even as I bent forward, my ears strained to catch the slightest whisper, the soft earth under me gave way, and in a perfect avalanche of dirt, shrubbery, and rocks, I rolled down into the camp of my enemies.
With a yell—shrill, loud, and piercing, which rang through the cave like the blast of a trumpet, the priest sprang up. With one spring like a wild goat, he was upon the ledge from which only one short moment ago I had fallen. I heard him tear through the bushes, and run down the hill outside, as though the furies were after him. The sound died away in the distance—he was gone.
But the other rogue was of sterner mold. With an oath, he whipped out his cutlass, and was upon me as I was rising from the ground. Well it was that I had on my light steel breastplate, for the blade, coming viciously down, struck full upon it, and glanced off harmlessly, or I would not have been here to tell the tale. In an instant I had drawn my sword and was on guard.
"I have against thee a goodly account to settle, Master Herrick," I said. "The night wanes, and we must to business."
"Aye," he cried, "I will rid the world of one rascal," and he pressed upon me, thrusting, cutting, striking with such fury that, had my blade not been a good one, it would have broken sheer off, from the very force of the blows.
I let him come on, contenting myself with parrying his thrusts, for by and by I knew that he would exhaust himself, and then I would force from him the secret of my imprisonment; for the priest had whispered it into his ear before I had rolled down upon them.
Of Father Francis I had no fear. He would not bring help to his comrade. No, I knew him too well to think that he would fail to protect himself. It was to his interest that Herrick should be silenced, now that he knew so much, and he was too shrewd not to know what was best for his own interest.
So I held my own, and let him exhaust himself with his fruitless efforts. Back he came upon me, striking down blow after blow with his blade, any one of which, had it gone home, would have split me like a herring. I could have run him through at any moment, for he left his whole breast exposed in his insane fury; but I merely waited, calmly, coolly meeting every thrust, parrying every cut with a wrist of steel.