"I will now leave you to make such arrangements between yourselves as may
be necessary for the work before you. Leave nothing incomplete, and be
punctual to the very minute in every instance."

With this parting injunction, Duffel left his villainous companions, who
began at once to prepare themselves for the dastardly business their
superior had allotted to them in his schemes of rascality and black-hearted
crime. This was Monday, in the afternoon, and consequently, but three days
until Hadley was to be waylaid and slain, and immediately afterward
somebody's horses stolen and run off, the crime of stealing which was to be
laid upon the murdered man. This was a plot worthy of the wretch who
conceived it, and, with the aid of villains as unscrupulous as himself, was
about to be put in execution.

From the moment the command of the "_Order of the League of Independents_"
(it ought have been named the Order of the League of Murderers and
Horse-Thieves) was vested in him, during the captain's absence, he had
resolved to make the most of his time and authority to bring all his plans
to a crisis and an issue. Hadley was to be disposed of; Mandeville was to
be blinded, his daughter, through him, forced to wed the rascal, or,
failing in this, _she_ was to be forced into measures, by fair means or
foul, of which hereafter.

* * * * *

Friday morning was ushered in amid clouds and storm. The heavens were
shrouded in a pall of darkness and the rain came down in torrents. Mr.
Mandeville had spent most of the night with his daughter, and did not
retire until some hours past midnight. Having been deprived of so much
rest, during the previous two weeks and more, his slumbers were unusually