By a great effort, he in a great measure stilled the trembling which would have betrayed him, and lay along a thick branch nearly breathless from terror. “You may depend he’s off,” said the man with the gun. “He wouldn’t wait for you.” “Unless he’s drowned himself,” remarked the other, who was the bill-sticker. “No fear of that,” remarked the other with a laugh, “these kind of fellows never cheat the hangman that way. He has had time to run across the field to Highgate or Hampstead, or even to skulk into town you may depend.” “Well, I’d take my oath it was him as was mentioned in the bill,” said the man who had brought all this danger upon Gray. “I was thankful I got off scot-free from him, I can tell you. He would soon have blown my brains out if I had said half a word.” “Oh, bother you,” cried the other, “you were too fainthearted, you mean to lay hold of him.” “It’s all very well for you to talk with a gun in your hand, but what odds was I with a paste-pot against a right down regular murderer, I should like to know?” “Upon my faith,” said he with the gun, “I should have enjoyed seeing you sneak off—I really should.” As he spoke, he commenced reloading his gun with deliberation. Oh, what a horrible process that was to Jacob Gray. Each moment gave him a pang of fear that nearly stopped the beating of his heart. How he watched the action of the ramrod as the powder was pressed down. Then the rattle of a number of small shot as they went down the barrel, came upon his ears with dreadful distinctness. Again there was a piece of paper pressed into the muzzle of the piece, and as the ramrod forced it home with a dull sound upon the charge, Jacob Gray perspired in every pore, and with difficulty kept himself from shrieking, mercy! Mercy! “That’s an old tree,” remarked the man, as he primed the gun, and stepping back a pace or two levelled it among the branches. “I recollect it when I was a boy.” “Fire away,” said the other, who seemed quite to enjoy the sport. “Now—now,” thought Jacob, “now to fall a bleeding wounded man to the ground—now for pain, horror, capture, death.”