"Well, give me breathing time," answered Rumsey, shaking himself; and then, glancing askance at the dark mass upon the floor, he growled sulkily, "What is it? What do you want to know? Murdered? Well, killing's no murder, I take it, when a man is driven to it in self-defence." "Self-defence!" "Ay. There's no telling where I mightn't be now, if this quarrelsome fellow here, had got the best of me. Don't you see the dagger there in his hand?" "Where are you hurt?" asked Lawrence, looking from the dagger to Rumsey. "I?--I?--Oh!" stammered Rumsey confusedly; "well, well, 'tis nothing to speak of. A scratch; hardly a mere scratch." "Who's dagger is this?" demanded Lee, stooping down, and closely inspecting the weapon in Goodenough's grasp. "Whose should it be?" rejoined Rumsey, letting his eyes fall shiftily beneath the penetrating glance of Lee, as it fell on him. "Faith! well, only I never knew him to carry so much as a bare bodkin about him," said Lawrence. [Sidenote: The traitor's tale.] "Then that shows how little you do know him," retorted Rumsey. "A more bloodthirsty, cantankerous fellow than he is, isn't to be found among the lot of us. Why, he's for lopping everybody who doesn't say 'snap' to his 'snip.'" "'Tis very strange," said Lee thoughtfully. "A nice thing," grumbled on Rumsey, letting his eyes rest on Lee's left hand, which hung straight down beside him. "A nice thing to attack a man in this fashion, as if he was a viper in a rut. And it's preciously fortunate I'm always prepared for any surprise. You'd find it a hard matter to catch Richard Rumsey on the hip;" and he smiled a smile of infinite self-complacency. "What's that dangling in your fingers there?" [Sidenote: The key.] "Only the key of the tower door," absently replied Lee. "But," he went on, again keenly glancing over Rumsey's figure: "it takes two to a fair fight--and a pair of weapons. Where is yours?" "Hadn't I my choice of twoscore at least out of the toys there?" said Rumsey after an instant's silence, and pointing to the oaken chest. "If you doubt it look for yourself. A real embarrassment of riches, eh?" he went on, watching Lee's face, as he lifted the lid of the chest and stood gazing at its gleaming contents. "Enough to do for a score of lives if one had 'em. But the best of us has but one in this bad world," he continued, piously turning up his eyes; "and Providence has spared me, as you see, from the sword of the ungodly. I'd have given my best firelock, though, it had not happened;" and for once Rumsey spoke pure and simple truth. "The fellow had his faults, but I had a great respect for him." "And is that what sent you clearing off in such a hurry?" asked Lawrence, turning contemptuously from Rumsey, and kneeling down beside Goodenough's motionless body he set his lantern on the floor, and the key beside it, and raised the wounded man's head; "and leaving him in this state?"