is so hard to believe anything so
base as a man bereft of every trait of virtue: now I see clearly that he
is so. I 'll track him, not to offer him the chances of a duel, but to
hunt him down as I would a wild beast. I 'll proceed up the river in the
disguise of an itinerant merchant,--one of those pedler fellows of which
this land is full,--taking the Irish dog along with me."

"Of whom, remember, you know nothing, sir," interposed Halkett.

"Nor need to know," said he, impatient at the interruption. "Let him
play me false, let me only suspect that he means it, and my reckoning
with him will be short. I have watched him closely of late, and I see
the fellow's curiosity is excited about us: he is evidently on the alert
to learn something of our object in this voyage; but the day he gains
the knowledge, Tom, will be his last to enjoy it. It is a cheap process
if we are at sea,--a dark night and an eighteen-pound shot! If on shore,
I 'll readily find some one to take the trouble off my hands."

It may be imagined with what a sensation of terror I heard these words,
feeling that my actual position at the moment would have decided my
fate, if discovered; and yet, with all this, I could not stir, nor make
an effort to leave the spot; a fascination to hear the remainder of the
conversation had thoroughly bound me as by a spell; and in breathless
anxiety I listened, as Sir Dudley resumed:

"You, with Heckenstein and the Greek, must follow, ready to assist me
when I need your aid; for my plan is this: I mean to entice the fellow,
on pretence of a pleasure excursion, a few miles from the town, into
the bush, there to bind him hand and foot, and convey him, by the forest
tracks, to the second 'portage,' where the batteaux are stationed, by
one of which--these Canadian fellows are easily bribed--we shall drop
down to Montreal. There the yacht shall be in waiting all ready for sea.
Even without a wind, three days will bring us off the Island of Orleans,
and as many more, if we be but fortunate, to the Gulf. The very worst
that can happen is discovery and detection; and if that ensue, I 'll
blow his brains out."

"And if we succeed in carrying him off, Sir Dudley, what then?"

"I have not made up my mind, Halkett, what I'll do. I 've thought of a
hundred schemes of vengeance; but, confound it, I must be content with
one only, though fifty deaths would not satisfy my hate."

"I'd put a bullet through his skull, or swing him fr