“Oh! just as if you didn’t understand me, my dear friend--my good, kind friend!” exclaimed Benjamin Bones, becoming more coaxing in his tone, which was as low and subdued as his sepulchral voice would admit. “Do consider for an instant--an old man like me to be in such trouble! You wouldn’t be happy if you had it on your mind that you had been the means--the actual means of sending such a wretched creature as myself to the scaffold? Speak to me, Mr. Dykes! Five thousand pounds--yes--five thousand pounds, in good gold guineas--if--if----” “If what?” asked the officer, with the most provoking determination not to understand any thing that was not explained in unmistakeable words. “If you--you will let me escape!” whispered Old Death, while his eyes seemed to penetrate to the very soul of the man towards whom he bent in a confidential way as he spoke. “Now that’s English,” said Dykes, whose countenance gave not the least indication of the manner in which he intended to receive the proposition. “And--and you will agree, won’t you?” asked Bones. “Remember--five thousand guineas--all to be paid in one lump--this very night----” “Well, now--it can’t be done, old chap,” interrupted Dykes, in a cool--almost brutal manner, as if he were glad of the opportunity to encourage hope for a time, merely for the sake of destroying it with a rude hand and in an abrupt way. “It can’t be done,” murmured Old Death, despair seizing upon him: “it can’t be done, you say?”--and his eyes glanced wildly around. “Is this all you have to tell me?” demanded the officer. “Because, if so----” “Five thousand guineas!--and he refuses it!” ejaculated Bones. “My God! what will become of me?--what will become of me?” And still his looks wandered rapidly about the apartment. “Now, then--let as go back into the next room, if you please,” said Dykes; “for I don’t see no use in staying here, wasting our time.” At that instant Old Death’s eyes settled upon something on a shelf close at hand; and, suddenly springing aside, he seized upon a bottle--the particular object for which he had been searching with his eager glances. Dykes, without even having a moment’s leisure to make a single conjecture relative to his intentions, but instinctively foreseeing that something wrong was contemplated, closed upon the old man in an instant. With the speed of lightning did Benjamin Bones raise the bottle which his right hand grasped; and in leas than the twinkling of an eye would it have been smashed down upon the officer, who, seeing his danger, by a natural impulse held down his head--when a yell of agony burst from the lips of the old miscreant. For, as he raised the bottle, the glass stopper fell out, and the burning vitriol streamed down on his head and over his countenance, a few drops only falling upon Dykes, and those principally on his clothes.