dear friend--you always were my dear friend--there's some mistake. Some
letter has been mislaid, or some messenger has been stopped upon the
way. He may have fallen dead. I saw a man once, fall down dead in the
street, myself, and he had papers in his pocket. Send to inquire. Let
somebody go to inquire. They never will hang me. They never can.--Yes,
they will,' he cried, starting to his feet with a terrible scream.
'They'll hang me by a trick, and keep the pardon back. It's a plot
against me. I shall lose my life!' And uttering another yell, he fell in
a fit upon the ground.

'See the hangman when it comes home to him!' cried Hugh again, as they
bore him away--'Ha ha ha! Courage, bold Barnaby, what care we? Your
hand! They do well to put us out of the world, for if we got loose a
second time, we wouldn't let them off so easy, eh? Another shake! A man
can die but once. If you wake in the night, sing that out lustily, and
fall asleep again. Ha ha ha!'

Barnaby glanced once more through the grate into the empty yard;
and then watched Hugh as he strode to the steps leading to his
sleeping-cell. He heard him shout, and burst into a roar of laughter,
and saw him flourish his hat. Then he turned away himself, like one who
walked in his sleep; and, without any sense of fear or sorrow, lay down
on his pallet, listening for the clock to strike again.

Chapter 77

The time wore on. The noises in the streets became less frequent by
degrees, until silence was scarcely broken save by the bells in church
towers, marking the progress--softer and more stealthy while the city
slumbered--of that Great Watcher with the hoary head, who never sleeps
or rests. In the brief interval of darkness and repose which feverish
towns enjoy, all busy sounds were hushed; and those who awoke from
dreams lay listening in their beds, and longed for dawn, and wished the
dead of the night were past.

Into the street outside the jail's main wall, workmen came straggling at
this solemn hour, in groups of two or three, and meeting in the centre,
cast their tools upon the ground and spoke in whispers. Others soon
issued from the jail itself, bearing on their shoulders planks and
beams: these materials being all brought forth, the rest bestirred
themselves, and the dull sound of hammers began to echo through the
stillness.

Here and there among this knot of labourers, one, with a lantern or
a smoky link, stood by to light his fellows at their work;