“Murrell sent you,” prompted the girl again, in a hurried whisper.

“Murrell—­” And in his astonishment Carrington spoke aloud.

“Murrell?” cried the voice sharply.

“—­sent me!” said Carrington quickly, as though completing an unfinished sentence.  The girl laughed nervously under her breath.

“Row closter!” came the sullen command, and the Kentuckian did as he was bidden.  Four men stood in the bow of the keel boat, a lantern was raised aloft and by its light they looked him over.  There was a moment’s silence broken by Carrington, who asked: 

“Which one of you is Slosson?” And he sprang lightly aboard the keel boat.

“I’m Slosson,” answered the man with the lantern.  The previous night Mr. Slosson had been somewhat under the enlivening and elevating influence of corn whisky, but now he was his own cheerless self, and rather jaded by the passing of the hours which he had sacrificed to an irksome responsibility.  “What word do you fetch from the Captain, brother?” he demanded.

“Miss Malroy is to be taken down river,” responded Carrington.  Slosson swore with surpassing fluency.

“Say, we’re five able-bodied men risking our necks to oblige him!  You can get married a damn sight easier than this if you go about it right—­I’ve done it lots of times.”  Not understanding the significance of Slosson’s allusion to his own matrimonial career, Carrington held his peace.  The tavern-beeper swore again with unimpaired vigor.  “You’ll find mighty few men with more experience than me,” he asserted, shaking his head.  “But if you say the word—­”

“I’m all for getting shut of this!” answered Carrington promptly, with a sweep of his arm.  “I call these pretty close quarters!” Still shaking his head and muttering, the tavernkeeper sprang ashore and mounted the bank, where his slouching figure quickly lost itself in the night.

Carrington took up his station on the flat roof of the cabin which filled the stern of the boat.  He was remembering that day in the sandy Barony road—­and during all the weeks and months that had intervened, Murrell, working in secret, had moved steadily toward the fulfilment of his desires!  Unquestionably he had been back of the attack on Norton, had inspired his subsequent murder, and the man’s sinister and mysterious power had never been suspected.  Carrington knew that the horse-thieves and slave stealers were supposed to maintain a loosely knit association; he wondered if Murrell were not the moving spirit in some such organization.

“If I’d only pushed my quarrel with him!” he thought bitterly.

He heard Slosson’s shuffling step in the distance, a word or two when he spoke grufy to some one, and a moment later he saw Betty and the boy, their forms darkly silhouetted against the lighter sky as they moved along the top of the bank.  Slosson, without any superfluous gallantry, helped his captives down the slope and aboard the keel boat, where he locked them in the cabin, the door of which fastened with a hasp and wooden peg.