llen, and he is by
this time as flat as a pancake."

"Good God! and yet it is but a just retribution upon him. He would have
assassinated poor Charles Holland in the cruelest and most cold-blooded
manner, and, however we may shudder at the manner of his death, we
cannot regret it."

"Except that he has escaped your friend the hangman," said the admiral.

"Don't call him my friend, if you please," said Dr. Chillingworth, "but,
hark how he is working away, as if he really intended to carry the house
away piece by piece, as opportunity may serve, if you will not let it to
him altogether, just as it stands."

"Confound him! he is evidently working on his own account," said the
admiral, "or he would not be half so industrious."

There was, indeed, a tremendous amount of hammering and noise, of one
sort and another, from the house, and it was quite clear that the
hangman was too heart and soul in his work, whatever may have been the
object of it, to care who was listening to him, or to what conjecture he
gave rise.

He thought probably that he could but be stopped in what he was about,
and, until he was so, that he might as well go on.

And on he went, with a vengeance, vexing the admiral terribly, who
proposed so repeatedly to go into the house and insist upon knowing what
he was about, that his, wishes were upon the point of being conceded to
by Henry, although they were combatted by the doctor, when, from the
window at which he had entered, out stepped the hangman.

"Good morning, gentlemen! good morning," he said, and he moved towards
the garden gate. "I will not trouble you any longer. Good morning!"

"Not so fast," said the admiral, "or we may bring you up with a round
turn, and I never miss my mark when I can see it, and I shall not let it
get out of sight, you may depend."

He drew a pistol from his pocket, as he spoke, and pointed it at the
hangman, who, thereupon paused and said:--

"What! am I not to be permitted to go in peace? Why it was but a short
time since the doctor was quarrelling with me because I did not go, and
now it seems that I am to be shot if I do."

"Yes," said the admiral, "that's it."

"Well! but,--"

"You dare," said he, "stir another inch towards the gate, and you are a
dead man!"

The hangman hesitated a moment, and looked at Admiral Bell; apparently
the result of the scrutiny was, that he would keep his word, for he
suddenly turned and dived in at the window again without s