“Well, come here and I'll have at you in the vulgar tongue. Aha! So you come in robust health and spirits and tempt a poor, broken, sick creature to mount the white feather; to show his soldierly qualities by running from the foe to some cool spot where there are no enemies, and there fighting the good fight in peace. Evans, you are a good creature, but you are a poor creature. Yes, Hawes is strong, yet I will resist him. And I am weak--yet I will resist. He will get the justices on his side--yet I will resist. I am sick and dispirited--yet I will resist. The representative of humanity and Christianity in a stronghold of darkness and cruelty and wrong must never sag with doubt nor shake with fear. I will fight with pen and hand and tongue against these outlaws, so long as there is a puff of wind in my body, and a drop of indomitable blood in my veins.” “No doubt you are game enough,” mourned Evans; “I wish you wern't.” “And as for you, you came here to seduce a sick, broken creature from his Master's service; you shall remain to be enlisted in it yourself instead.” Evans shuffled uneasily on his chair at these words. “I think I am on your side,” said he. “Half! but it is no use being half anything; your hour is come to choose between all right and all wrong.” “I wouldn't be long choosing if it warn't for one thing.” “And what is that one thing which can outweigh the one thing needful?” “My wife and my four children; if I get myself turned out of this jail how am I to find bread for that small lot?” “And do you think shilly-shallying between two stools will secure your seat? You have gone too far with me to retract; don't you see that the jailer means to get you dismissed the next time the justices visit the jail for business? Can't you read your fate in the man's eye?” Evans groaned. “I read it, I read it, but I didn't want to believe it.” “He set a trap for you half an hour after you had defended me.” “He did! I told my wife I was a gone coon, but she overpersuaded me; 'Keep quiet,' said she, 'and 'twill blow over.' But you see it in the same light as I did, don't you, sir?” Mr. Eden smiled grimly in assent. “You are a doomed man,” said he coolly; “half measures can't save you, but whole measures may--perhaps.” “What is to be done, sir?” asked Evans helplessly. “Your only chance is to go heart and hand with me in the project which occupies me now.” “I will, sir,” cried Fluctuans, with a sudden burst of resolution, “for I'm druv in a corner. So please tell me what is your project?” “To get Mr. Hawes dismissed from this jail.” As he uttered these words the reverend gentleman had a severe spasm which forced him to lie back and draw his breath hard. Evans uttered something between a cry of dismay and a groan of despair, and stared down upon this audacious invalid with wonder and ire at his supernatural but absurd cool courage.