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The two unfortunate boys were awake, and talking to the now disconsolate author of all their troubles, the disguised girl whom they had lost themselves in saving. "Hullo, madam," exclaimed Hunston, brutally, "what do you do here, talking with the condemned brats." "I am seeking to comfort them," replied the girl; "to prepare them for the butchers." "Butchers? Humph!"
"Not exactly strange, either, every thing considered, after all we have gone through. Why, Jack, you will hardly believe me when I tell you that I scarcely sleep without dreaming of Hunston. And what is there wonderful in that, after all that has taken place? It was enough to shake the strongest nerves, to startle the bravest man that ever lived."
"I wonder if the brigand Toro is alive or dead, or if I shall ever have his help to destroy my old and hated enemy Harkaway." "I have had such horrible dreams, doctor," said Hunston the next morning. "I don't much wonder at your dreams being ugly ones," replied the doctor, significantly. Hunston coughed. There was no mistaking the doctor's meaning. The conversation hung fire for a moment.
I thought but little then how soon I was to repent of my share in that evil work." "Go on." "I will, to the end, even though you should learn to loathe me. Well, a price was put on their heads." "Which I paid." "You paid one-fifth." "No, no; I paid all, as demanded." "Hunston returned to the camp with only one hundred pounds, and they voted the death of the two boys. Poor boys! both brave boys.
What removed Varney so abruptly from the Hackley porch and the public view was the sudden fulfilment of quite another prediction of Peter's: the one about the return to Hunston of the gum-shod Mr. Higginson. The news came without warning.
As he sat there, the sentinel remained motionless, leaning on his carbine and peering over the edge of the precipice. Presently Diana, the widow of Mathias, came up the rock, and Hunston rose to greet her. "Your husband is to a certain extent avenged," said he. "How?" "Harkaway's boy is in our power," "That is something, at all events.
"We have come to the conclusion, mister," said Joe Basalt, "that there is nothing for it but to let the skipper know all." Hunston pricked up his ears at this. "Do what?" he exclaimed, violently. "Split upon me, would ye?" "That's a rum word to use," said Joe Basalt.
When he recovered consciousness, his first sensations were of burning in the throat, and opening his eyes, he found himself being cared tenderly for by one of the sailors who had brought him there. "Come, come, I say, mister," said the honest tar, who had had a bit of a fright on finding Hunston's condition, "this won't do, you know." "I am better now," murmured Hunston, faintly.
Back he went, and then began a comedy which Hunston went through like a veteran actor, a comedy that was destined to have a tragic finale. "Toro," said Hunston to the Italian, "to you I may speak as the leader of these brave fellows; also to you, comrades in general, I may talk without fear of my motives being in any way misconstrued." "Speak on."
He knew well enough that the real way to enrage the ruffian was to appear unmoved at his taunts. So when Hunston had exhausted his expletives and was about to give the word to the firing party, young Jack spoke. "One moment." Hunston made the men a sign to ground arms. The boy was about to beg for mercy. Here, then, there was one chance of wreaking his spite upon the lad.
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