"
"Why, he sang but a line of it," said I, "and that harmless enough,
though dismal."
"Is that so, lad--is that so?" Captain Danny put out a hand like a
bird's claw and hooked me by the cuff. "Wasn' there nothing in it
about Execution Dock; nothing about ripe medlars--'medlars a-rottin'
on the tree'? No?"--for I shook my head. "Well, then, I could be
sworn I heard him singin' them words for minutes, an' me sittin' all
the while wi' the horrors on me afore I dared look in his damned
face. An' you tell me he piped but a line of it?" His eyes searched
mine anxiously. "Brooks," he went on, in a voice almost coaxing,
"I'd give five hundred pound at this moment if you could look me in
the face an' tell me the whole scare was nothing but fancy--that _he_
wasn't there!"
His grasp relaxed as I shook my head again. Despair grew in his
eyes, and he pulled back his hand.
"I'll put it to you another way," said he, after seeming to reflect
for a while. "Suppose there was a couple o' men mixed up in an ugly
job--by which I don't mean to say there was any real harm in the
business; leastways not to start with; but, as it went on, these two
men were forced to do something that brought them within reach o' the
law.
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