‘There, we shall soon be able to make a snug lodging for him,’ said one of the villains, taking up a spade and preparing to begin to dig, ‘and no one will ever know what has become of him. How nicely we gammoned the old fool to take up his lodging with us.’ ‘You’re right,’ said the other, ‘it was very well done, and I must give you the credit of doing the best part towards it. If the friends of the old drover look for his return home, how woefully deceived they will be.’ ‘Ha! ha! ha!’ laughed the first villain, ‘indeed they will. Well, we have got a very tidy booty for this job.’ ‘Yes, it will pay us for the trouble we have been at,’ was the answer; ‘but I’ll warrant that we shall circulate the blunt a little more freely than the old fellow would have done. We must not be in the city many days.’ ‘As soon as the job’s over we will quit the spot,’ returned his companion, ‘and it will be many a long day ere we shall revisit this neighborhood again. We couldn’t have fixed a much better place than this to deposit the old fellow’s remains in; but, I say, there is a door yonder, which seems to lead to another part of the house; suppose we examine that, and see whether it will serve better to conceal the body of the murdered man in than this.’ ‘Great God!’ thought Inez, ‘I am lost; they will discover and murder me. By what horrible fatality were my footsteps guided to this place?’ ‘Psha! what’s the use of talking in that manner, Kay?’ said the other ruffian, to whom this proposition was addressed; ‘we have no time to spare; besides, we have half dug the grave here, and I dare say the old chap will lie as contented here as he would a foot or two off. Come, come, let’s finish the business and begone, for I am almost tired of it, and if we remain here much longer, there’s no knowing but that we might be discovered.’ ‘Oh, very well,’ said Kay, as the other man had called him, ‘it matters very little, so let’s go to work, and get done as quick as possible.’ ‘I think we have given him depth enough,’ remarked the other wretch, ‘and he’ll not pop up again in a hurry by himself. Come, out with him, and let’s finish the job at once.’ This, as may be imagined, was a moment of unutterable horror to our heroine, who had watched the proceedings, and listened to the conversation of the assassins with the most breathless attention; and a shuddering seized upon her frame which she found it impossible to resist.—It would, however, be useless to attempt to describe the relief she felt when she heard the observations of the first ruffian, by which he was persuaded from entering the place in which she was concealed; but every moment that they prolonged their stay increased her terror and anxiety, for fear that her infant should awake, and, crying loud, betray her.