"Och, I would have cut off both their heads and made a sure thing of it, and there never would have been another word about the matter."
I looked at him with a good deal of curiosity, for I can assure you it gives a man a strange feeling to hear his taking off talked over to his face as a matter of course.
"Who were they," I asked, "and from what country?"
"The oldest, and a stout-like man, was Irish. The youngest, and very strong-like, was a McDonell, of the family of Glengarry," he answered.
"How did they know the money was there? Did these officers speak of it?" I asked, thinking I might as well get at the whole story.
"No," said he, "but another officer, who had been with old Colin since the battle, went on board their ship when they landed and told him the youngest one was sure to have money."
"Was his name Creach or Graeme," I went on.
"I don't just remember, but his face was as white as a sick woman's," was the answer, which fixed my man for me beyond a doubt.
"Colin Dearg got three hundred guineas, William Killcoy three hundred, and Lieutenant Murdock McKenzie three hundred."
"Two men who stood behind the Irish Captain with drawn dirks, ready to kill him had he observed Colin Dearg cutting open the portmanteau, got twenty-five guineas each, and I and another man, prepared to do the like to the young Captain McDonell, got the same," he answered, very cool, as if it were a piece of business he did every day.
"Now, are you telling the truth?" I asked, sternly.
"As sure as I shall answer for it on the Last Day," he said, warmly.
"And do you know to whom you are speaking?"
"To a friend, I suppose, and one of my own name."
"No, you damned rascal!" I roared, and caught him by the throat with my left hand, twitching out my dirk in my right, and throwing him on his back. "I am that very McDowell you stood ready to murder!" And I was within an ace of running him through the heart, when I suddenly reflected that I was quite alone, in a place where I was in a manner a stranger, and among people whom I had every reason to distrust. I got up, thrust my dirk into its sheath, and walked off without a word, leaving the fellow lying where I had thrown him.
I met Mr. McKenzie in the entry, who asked me where I had been.