Let me see what it is she has confided to you."

"That I will," replied Jonathan. And thereupon he thrust his hand
into his breeches-pocket and brought forth the ivory ball.

No sooner did the one eye of the little gentleman in black light
upon the object than a most singular and extraordinary convulsion
appeared to seize upon him. Had a bullet penetrated his heart he
could not have started more violently, nor have sat more rigidly
and breathlessly staring.

Mastering his emotion with the utmost difficulty as Jonathan
replaced the ball in his pocket, he drew a deep and profound
breath and wiped the palm of his hand across his forehead as
though arousing himself from a dream.

"And you," he said, of a sudden, "are, I understand it, a Quaker.
Do you, then, never carry a weapon, even in such a place as this,
where at any moment in the dark a Spanish knife may be stuck
betwixt your ribs?"

"Why, no," said Jonathan, somewhat surprised that so foreign a
topic should have been so suddenly introduced into the discourse.
"I am a man of peace and not of blood. The people of the Society
of Friends never carry weapons, either of offence or defence."

As Jonathan concluded his reply the little gentleman suddenly
arose from his chair and moved briskly around to the other side
of the room. Our hero, watching him with some surprise, beheld
him clap to the door and with a single movement shoot the bolt