“So, friends, we all meet again, do we, eh?—­ha, ha, ha!”

At the sound of his voice, the old man and his wife, both of whom had been too intently occupied with Algernon and Ella to notice him before, started, and turning their eyes suddenly upon him, simultaneously exclaimed: 

“Mr. Williams!”

“Sometimes Mr. Williams,” answered the other, with a strong emphasis on the first word, accompanying it with a horrible oath; “but now, when disguise is no longer necessary, Simon Girty, the renegade, by ——!—­ha, ha, ha!”

As he uttered these words, in a coarse, ruffianly tone, a visible shudder of fear or disgust, or both combined, passed through the frame of each of the prisoners; and Algernon turning to him, with an expression of loathing contempt, said: 

“I more than half suspected as much, when I sometime since contemplated your low-browed, hang-dog countenance.  Of course we can expect no mercy at such hands.”

“Mercy!” cried Girty, turning fiercely upon him, his eyes gleaming savagely, his mouth twisting into a shape intended to express the most withering contempt, while his words fairly hissed from between his tightly set teeth:  “Mercy? dog!  No, by h——­l! for none like you!  Hark ye, Mr. Reynolds!  Were you in the damnable cells of the Inquisition, accused of heresy, and about to be put to the tortures, you might think yourself in Paradise compared to what you shall yet undergo!”

As he uttered these words, Ella shrieked and fell fainting to the earth.  Springing to her, Girty raised her in his arms; and pointing to her pale features, as he did so, continued: 

“See!  Mr. Reynolds, this girl loves you; I love her; we are rivals; and you, my rival, are in my power:  and, by ——! and all the powers of darkness, you shall feel my vengeance!”

“You love her?” broke in Mrs. Younker, who, in spite of her previous dangerous warning, could hold her peace no longer:  “You love her! you mean, contemptible, red headed puppy!  I don’t believe as how you knows enough to love nothing!  And so you’re Simon Girty, hey? that thar sneaking, red-coat renegade?  Well, I reckon as how you’ve told the truth once; for I’ve hearn tell that he war an orful mean looking imp o’ Satan; and I jest don’t believe as how a meaner one nor yourself could be skeer’d up in the whole universal yarth o’ creation.”

“Rail on, old woman!” replied Girty, as he chafed the temples of Ella with his hands; “but in a little lower key; or I shall be under the necessity of ordering a stopper to your mouth; which, saving the tortures of the stake, is the worst punishment for you I can now invent.  As for you, Mr. Younker,” continued he, turning his face to the old man, with a peculiar expression; “you seem to have nothing to say to an old friend—­ha, ha, ha!”

“Whensomever I mention the name o’ Simon Girty,” replied Younker, in a deliberate and startlingly solemn tone, “I al’ays call down God’s curse upon the fiendish renegade—­and I do so now.”