But that incomparable personage was in a fair way of ascertaining what
happiness in the world to come is reserved for a man who has spared no
pains to make himself comfortable in this. For the two first and most
active robbers having finished the achievement of the horses, now
approached Mauleverer; and the taller of them, still indignant at the
late peril to his hair, cried out in a stentorian voice,--

"By Jove! you old fool, if you don't throw down your toasting-fork, I'll
be the death of you!"

The speaker suited the action to the word by cocking an immense pistol.
Mauleverer stood his ground; but Smoothson retreated, and stumbling
against the wheel of the carriage, fell backward; the next instant, the
second highwayman had possessed himself of the valet's pistols, and,
quietly seated on the fallen man's stomach, amused himself by inspecting
the contents of the domestic's pockets. Mauleverer was now alone; and
his stubbornness so enraged the tall bully that his hand was already on
his trigger, when the third robber, whose side Mauleverer's bullet had
grazed, thrust himself between the two.

"Hold, Ned!" said he, pushing back his comrade's pistol. "And you, my
lord, whose rashness ought to cost you your life, learn that men can rob
generously." So saying, with one dexterous stroke from the robber's
riding-whip, Mauleverer's sword flew upwards, and alighted at the
distance of ten yards from its owner.

"Approach now," said the victor to his comrades. "Rifle the carriage,
and with all despatch!"

The tall highwayman hastened to execute this order; and the lesser one