“It means _murder_, Bob,” said one of the men. “What! murder?” “Yes; and you did it,” said the other, “if I’m not much mistaken.” “Me?” “Aye you, Bob; look at your fine clothes stained with blood!” And so they were. They had been wiped, but the stains were there upon them still. “Oh! heavens! have mercy on me!” said Bob, turning white as a sheet, and fell into an arm chair, stricken to the heart with surprise and sorrow. “We did not think you would do such a horrid thing as this is, Bob,” said the officers; “but we were warned of your threats, and your coming here to rob your father, and came to prevent it.” “Me? Rob my father? Come here to murder? Warned of it beforehand?” gasped Bob, with staring eyes, “What means this? Is it all a terrible, horrible dream, or what?” “No; it is an awful reality, and we must take you in custody, on the charge of murder.” In an instant the two officers handcuffed him. He did not utter a word or move a muscle. He was pale, and looked wildly about him as if in a dream. “Poor Nance!” he sighed, thinking of his pretty persecuted sweetheart and intended wife. “Poor Nance, this news will break thy young heart!” Bob hung his head. The constables were sorrowful and silent. Betty looked like a crazy woman, as she sat on the floor, sobbing. Not a word was spoken. All was still. The silence was at last broken by the slow, measured tread of some one coming upstairs. The footsteps crossed the landing. All turned anxiously towards the door. Judge of their looks and shouts of fright and horror! The bodiless legs walked slowly into the room! CHAPTER IV. SIR RICHARD WARBECK AND WILDFIRE NED—THE ONE-LEGGED SAILOR’S NARRATIVE. Darlington Hall, the country residence of Sir Richard Warbeck, was an immense old building, high, strongly built, containing many galleries, vaults, and mysterious ins and outs, with numerous towers, effigies of men in armour on landings, corridors, and rooms, the old baronial edifice covered with ivy for the most part, and stood in a spacious, well-wooded park, not many miles from the sea. The knight, from some unknown cause, though immensely wealthy, had never married, but consoled himself with adopting two friendless orphan youths, Charles and Edward, or Wildfire Ned, who, in his honour, took the name of Warbeck. Charles, the elder of the two, was in London. “Wildfire Ned,” as he had been christened by the country people, on account of his mad freaks, loved to live at the Hall, so that he might have ample opportunities for indulging in shooting, fishing, hunting, swimming, and particularly sailing in a small bay near by, a sport of which he was so passionately fond that old salts always called him “Ned, the Sailor Boy.” His adopted uncle loved Ned, perhaps more so than Charles, for he was a handsome, brave, and adventurous youth of about fifteen years old, the ladies’ pet, and the envy of all young men for miles around.