'I warrant our lives are as good as theirs,' replied his comrade. 'If
we don't kill them, they will hang us: better they should die than we be
hanged.' 'Better, better,' cried his comrades.
'To commit murder, is a hopeful way of escaping the gallows!' said the
first ruffian--'many an honest fellow has run his head into the noose
that way, though.' There was a pause of some moments, during which they
appeared to be considering.
'Confound those fellows,' exclaimed one of the robbers impatiently,
'they ought to have been here by this time; they will come back
presently with the old story, and no booty: if they were here, our
business would be plain and easy. I see we shall not be able to do the
business to-night, for our numbers are not equal to the enemy, and in
the morning they will be for marching off, and how can we detain them
without force?' 'I have been thinking of a scheme, that will do,' said one of his
comrades: 'if we can dispatch the two chevaliers silently, it will be
easy to master the rest.'
'That's a plausible scheme, in good faith,' said another with a smile
of scorn--'If I can eat my way through the prison wall, I shall be at
liberty!--How can we dispatch them SILENTLY?'
'By poison,' replied his companions.
'Well said! that will do,' said the second ruffian, 'that will give a
lingering death too, and satisfy my revenge. These barons shall take
care how they again tempt our vengeance.'
'I knew the son, the moment I saw him,' said the man, whom Blanche had
observed gazing on St. Foix, 'though he does not know me; the father I
had almost forgotten.' 'Well, you may say what you will,' said the third ruffian, 'but I don't
believe he is the Baron, and I am as likely to know as any of you, for I
was one of them, that attacked him, with our brave lads, that suffered.'
'And was not I another?' said the first ruffian, 'I tell you he is the
Baron; but what does it signify whether he is or not?--shall we let all
this booty go out of our hands? It is not often we have such luck at
this. While we run the chance of the wheel for smuggling a few pounds of
tobacco, to cheat the king's manufactory, and of breaking our necks
down the precipices in the chace of our food; and, now and then, rob a
brother smuggler, or a straggling pilgrim, of what scarcely repays us
the powder we fire at them, shall we let such a prize as this go? Why
they have enough about them to keep us for--'