The Mysteries of Udolpho

'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--'