“Not he. ’Tis for spying he’s come, and he’d not go back so soon, and with all of us about, too. Nay, he’ll be on the premises still, somewheres, and, odds my life, we’ll make short work of him when we find him. We’ll tie him on the brown mare, and whip him till he swoons, and then we’ll put his body down the Monks’ Well that lies t’other side of the hill yonder.” Then the shrill, thin whining voice of Long Jack broke in upon the thunder of the others. Almost sobbing, and speaking in accents of real terror, he said, thickly, and with uncertain intonation— “How now, mates, how now? Best leave well alone. Besht leave well alone, Oi say, and may Heaven Almoighty pardon us what we’ve done this noight! It’s ill work is murder, and it’ll be murder if you come against him this noight.” Ben the Blast gave a contemptuous grunt. “Ugh!” cried he, surlily; “drop that sniveling, Jack! Thou are loike to a wolf with a knife in thy hand and thy blood up: but no sooner art thou cold again, than thy tears flow as fast as thy liquor. Get thee to bed, mate, so thou doesn’t loike the sound of our singing, nor of the tune we shall sing to.” But Long Jack, still sighing and moaning, got up and staggered down the room. Tregenna, with his heart in his mouth, saw him lurch towards the hall where he was in hiding. But Long Jack, who was unsteady on his legs, had but taken a few steps out of his right course, Bill Plunder ran after him, and fetched him back; and the tall, lean, miserable-looking rascal and his small ferret-faced companion went again out of sight together. They all trooped out quickly, leaving, as Tregenna knew by the lull, only Ben the Blast and Ann in the kitchen. They had taken some of the torches with them, too; for the light had become very dim, even on the whitewashed lower walls; while the great timbered roof overhead was now in pitchy blackness. There was a silence when Ben and Ann were alone together, after he had gone to the door and slammed it. Then she began to hum softly to herself. “What art a-singing for?” asked Ben, gruffly. “To keep up my spirits maybe,” returned she, saucily. “Thou didst not need for to keep up thy spirits till latterly; they was allus up,” said Ben. “What’s come to thee these last days? Is’t since what happened t’other day that thou’rt so down in the mouth? Is’t that thou wouldst like to be even with them that’s done thee so ill a turn—eh, lass?” “Ay, that would I,” answered Ann, savagely. “I do thirst to pay back as good as I’ve been given. I’m none of your soft ones, as you know, Ben.” “Odso, Oi don’t know it? It’s why Oi loike thee, Ann. Give me a lass, says Oi, as can deal you a blow with her fist if she’s a mind, loike as you did t’other day, when Oi did but ask for a smack of the lips. The day yon cursed lieutenant tried to come atween us, you mind, Ann?”