"You do?--swear it, then."

"By all my hopes of earth and heaven!"

"What a d-----d coward you be!" said Darvil, laughing scornfully.
"Go--you are safe. I am in good humour with myself again. I crow over
you, for no man can make me tremble. And villain as you think me, while
you fear me you cannot despise--you respect me. Go, I say--go."

The banker was about to obey, when suddenly, from the haystack, a broad,
red light streamed upon the pair, and the next moment Darvil was seized
from behind, and struggling in the gripe of a man nearly as powerful as
himself. The light, which came from a dark-lanthorn, placed on the
ground, revealed the forms of a peasant in a smock-frock, and two
stout-built, stalwart men, armed with pistols--besides the one engaged
with Darvil.

The whole of this scene was brought as by the trick of the stage--
as by a flash of lightning--as by the change of a showman's
phantasmagoria--before the astonished eyes of the banker. He stood
arrested and spell-bound, his hand on his bridle, his foot on his
stirrup. A moment more and Darvil had clashed his antagonist on the
ground; he stood at a little distance, his face reddened by the glare of
the lanthorn and fronting his assailants--that fiercest of all beasts, a
desperate man at bay! He had already succeeded in drawing forth his
pistols, and he held one in each hand--his eyes flashing from beneath
his bent brows and turning quickly from foe to foe! At last those
terrible eyes rested on the late reluctant companion of his solitude.