"At all events, let me advise you to avoid such companions as those with whom you appear to have been allied," observed Richard, "and who are cruel enough to immure a female in a subterranean dungeon." "I shall not neglect your advice, sir," returned Skilligalee; "and may God bless you for it." "And you," continued Richard, addressing himself to Margaret Flathers, "second your companion in his good intentions. I know not what deed on your part could have led to your incarceration in that cell—neither do I seek to know;—but to you I would give similar advice—avoid those whose ways are criminal, and whose vengeance is as terrific as it is lawless. Farewell." "May God bless you, sir, for your good counsel!" said Margaret Flathers, weeping. She had not merely repeated, with parrot-like callousness, the words uttered by her companion: that benediction emanated with fervid sincerity from a heart deeply penetrated by anxiety to renew a long-forgotten acquaintance with rectitude. "Farewell, sir," said Skilligalee. He and the Rattlesnake then struck into one of the streets with which the alley at the back of the gipsies' palace communicated. Richard took another direction on his way homewards. CHAPTER CXLII. GIBBET. A fortnight had passed since the incidents just related. It was a Monday morning. The clock of St. Giles's had just struck six, when the faint, flickering gleam of a candle struggled through the uppermost windows of the hangman's house. The few persons who were passing along at that hour, and on that dark winter's morning, shuddered as they caught a glimpse of the sickly glare through the obscurity and the mist—for they thought within themselves, "The executioner is up early on account of the man that's to be hanged at eight o'clock." And such was indeed the case. Smithers rose shortly before six; and, having lighted the solitary candle that stood upon the mantel, proceeded to the floor below to call his son. "Gibbet, you lazy hound!" he cried, thundering with his fist at the door of the hump-back's room; "get up." "I'm getting up, father," replied the lad, from the interior of the chamber. "Well, make haste about it," said the executioner in a savage tone. He then returned to the loft. There was something horribly fantastic in the appearance of that place. The dim and sickly light of the candle did but little more than redeem from complete obscurity the various strange objects which we have already described. But as the penetrating eye of the executioner plunged into the visible darkness of the loft, and beheld the ominous figure balancing beneath the beam, while its mask of a livid white hue wore a ghastly appearance in contrast with the black body and limbs which it surmounted,—no sentiment of horror nor of alarm agitated his heart. The avocations of the man had brutalized him, and blunted every humane feeling which he had once possessed.