“For Heaven’s sake,” said Marchdale, “do not let us trifle at such a moment as this.  Mr. Pringle, you really had no business here.”

“Mr. who?” said Jack.

“Pringle, I believe, is your name?” returned Marchdale.

“It were; but blowed if ever I was called mister before.”

The admiral walked up to Sir Francis Varney, and gave him a nod that looked much more like one of defiance than of salutation, to which the vampyre replied by a low, courtly bow.

“Oh, bother!” muttered the old admiral.  “If I was to double up my backbone like that, I should never get it down straight again.  Well, all’s right; you’ve come; that’s all you could do, I suppose.”

“I am here,” said Varney, “and therefore it becomes a work of supererogation to remark that I’ve come.”

“Oh! does it?  I never bolted a dictionary, and, therefore, I don’t know exactly what you mean.”

“Step aside with me a moment, Admiral Bell, and I will tell you what you are to do with me after I am shot, if such should be my fate.”

“Do with you!  D——­d if I’ll do anything with you.”

“I don’t expect you will regret me; you will eat.”

“Eat!”

“Yes, and drink as usual, no doubt, notwithstanding being witness to the decease of a fellow-creature.”

“Belay there; don’t call yourself a fellow-creature of mine; I ain’t a vampyre.”

“But there’s no knowing what you may be; and now listen to my instructions; for as you’re my second, you cannot very well refuse to me a few friendly offices.  Rain is falling.  Step beneath this ancient tree, and I will talk to you.”

CHAPTER XXXIX.

THE STORM AND THE FIGHT.-THE ADMIRAL’S REPUDIATION OF HIS PRINCIPAL.

[Illustration]

“Well,” said the admiral, when they were fairly under the tree, upon the leaves of which the pattering rain might be heard falling:  “well—­what is it?”

“If your young friend, Mr. Bannerworth, should chance to send a pistol-bullet through any portion of my anatomy, prejudicial to the prolongation of my existence, you will be so good as not to interfere with anything I may have about me, or to make any disturbance whatever.”

“You may depend I sha’n’t.”

“Just take the matter perfectly easy—­as a thing of course.”

“Oh!  I mean d——­d easy.”

“Ha! what a delightful thing is friendship!  There is a little knoll or mound of earth midway between here and the Hall.  Do you happen to know it?  There is one solitary tree glowing near its summit—­an oriental looking tree, of the fir tribe, which, fan-like, spreads its deep green leaves; across the azure sky.”

“Oh! bother it; it’s a d——­d old tree, growing upon a little bit of a hill, I suppose you mean?”

“Precisely; only much more poetically expressed.  The moon rises at a quarter past four to-night, or rather to-morrow, morning.”