“When do you leave?” said he.
“To-morrow morning, Nick,” said I. “You wanted once to go to Kentucky; why not come with me?”
His face clouded.
“I do not budge from this town,” said he, “I do not budge until I hear that Jack Sevier is safe. Damn Cozby! If he had given me my way, we should have been forty miles from here by this. I'll tell you. Cozby is even now picking five men to go to Morganton and steal Sevier, and he puts me off with a kind word. He'll not have me, he says.”
“He thinks you too hot. It needs discretion and an old head,” said I.
“Egad, then, I'll commend you to him,” said Nick.
“Now,” I said, “it's time for you to tell me something of yourself, and how you chanced to come into this country.”
“'Twas Darnley's fault,” said Nick.
“Darnley!” I exclaimed; “he whom you got into the duel with—” I stopped abruptly, with a sharp twinge of remembrance that was like a pain in my side. 'Twas Nick took up the name.
“With Harry Riddle.” He spoke quietly, that was the terrifying part of it. “David, I've looked for that man in Italy and France, I've scoured London for him, and, by God, I'll find him before he dies. And when I do find him I swear to you that there will be no such thing as time wasted, or mercy.”