Confessions Of Con Cregan, the Irish Gil Blas. Lever Charles James

were peering into the distance.

      “I ‘ll swear I saw him take this way,” cried one, in a deep low voice.

      “If he were the Devil himself, he could not escape us here,” said the other, with an accent of vindictive passion.

      “And he is the Devil,” said the former speaker.

      “Pooh, nonsense, man! any fellow who can win at dice, or has a steady finger with a pistol, is a marvel for you. Curses on him! he has given us the slip somehow.”

      “I’d not wonder, Harry, if he has taken the water; he swims like a duck!”

      “He could not have sprung from a height like that without a plash, and we were close enough upon his heels to hear it; flash off some powder in a piece of paper: it is dark as pitch here.”

      While the men above were preparing their light, I heard a slight stir in the stern of the boat. I turned my head, and saw my companion coolly fitting a cap on his pistol; he was doing it with difficulty, as he was obliged to hold the pistol between his knees, while he adjusted the cap with his left hand; the right hand he carried in the breast of his coat. Nothing could be more calm and collected than his every movement, up to the instant when, having cocked the weapon, he lay back in the boat, so as to have a full stare at the two dark figures above us.

      At last, the fuse was ready, and, being lighted, it was held for a few seconds in the hand, and then thrown into the air. The red and lurid glare flashed full upon two savage-looking faces, straight above our heads, and for an instant showed their figures with all the distinctness of noonday. I saw them both, as if by a common impulse, lean over the parapet and peer down into the dark water below, and I could have almost sworn that we were discovered; my companion evidently thought so too, for he raised his pistol steadily, and took a long and careful aim. What a moment was that for me, expecting at every instant to hear the report, and then the heavy fall of the dead man into the water! My throat was full to bursting. The bit of burning paper of the fuse had fallen on my companion’s pistol-hand; but though it must have scorched him, he never stirred, nor even brushed it off. I thought that by its faint flicker, also, we might have been seen. But no, it was plain they had not perceived us; and it was with a delight I cannot describe that I saw one and then the other descend from the wall, while I heard the words, “There’s the second time above five hundred pounds has slipped from us. D – n the fellow! but if I hang for him, I’ll do it yet!”

      “Well, you’ve spoiled his hand for hazard for a while, anyhow, Harry!” said the other. “I think you must have taken his fingers clean off!”

      “The knife was like a razor,” replied the other, with a laugh; “but he struck it out of my hand with a blow above the wrist; and, I can tell you, I ‘d as soon get the kick of a horse as a short stroke of the same closed fist.”

      They continued to converse as they moved away, but their words only reached me in broken, unconnected sentences. From all I could glean, however, I was in company with one of enormous personal strength and a most reckless intrepidity. At last, all was still; not a sound to be heard on any side; and my companion, leaning forward, said, “Come, my lad, pull me out a short distance into the offing; we shall soon see a light to guide us!”

      In calm, still water I could row well. I had been boat-boy to the priest at all his autumn fishing excursions on the Westmeath lakes, so that I acquitted myself creditably, urged on, I am free to confess, by a very profound fear of the large figure who loomed so mysteriously in the stern. For a time we proceeded in deep silence, when at last he said, “What vessel do you belong to, boy?”

      “I was never at sea, sir,” replied I.

      “Not a sailor! How comes it, then, you can row so well?”

      “I learned to row in fresh water, sir.”

      “What are you? How came you to be here to-night?”

      “By merest chance, sir. I had no money to pay for a bed. I have neither home nor friends. I have lived, by holding horses, and running errands, in the streets.”

      “Picking pockets occasionally, I suppose, too, when regular business was dull!”

      “Never!” said I, indignantly.

      “Don’t be shocked, my fine fellow,” said he, jeeringly; “better men than ever you ‘ll be have done a little that way. I have made some lighter this evening myself, for the matter of that!”

      This confession, if very frank, was not very reassuring; and so I made no answer, but rowed away with all my might.

      “Well!” said he, after a pause, “luck has befriended me twice to-night; and sending you to sleep under that wall was not the worst turn of the two. Ship your oars there, boy, and let us see if you are as handy a surgeon as you are a sailor! Try and bind up these wounded fingers of mine, for they begin to smart with the cold night air.”

      “Wait an instant,” cried he; “we are safe now, so you may light this lantern;” and he took from his pocket a small and most elegantly fashioned lantern, which he immediately lighted.

      I own it was with a most intense curiosity I waited for the light to scan the features of my singular companion; nor was my satisfaction inconsiderable when, instead of the terrific-looking fellow – half bravo, half pirate – I expected, I perceived before me a man of apparently thirty-one or two, with large but handsome features and gentlemanly appearance. He had an immense beard and moustache, which united at either side of the mouth; but this, ferocious enough to one unaccustomed to it, could not take off the quiet regularity and good-humor of his manly features. He wore a large-brimmed slouched felt hat that shaded his brows, and he seemed to be dressed with some care, beneath the rough exterior of a common pilot-coat, – at least, he wore silk stockings and shoes, as if in evening-dress. These particulars I had time to note, while he unwound from his crippled hand the strips of a silk handkerchief which, stiffened and clotted with blood, bespoke a deep and severe wound.

      If the operation were often painful even to torture, he never winced, or permitted the slightest expression of suffering to escape him. At last the undressing was completed, and a fearful gash appeared, separating the four fingers almost entirely from the hand. The keenness of the cut showed that the weapon must have been, as the fellow averred, sharp as a razor. Perhaps the copious loss of blood had exhausted the vessels, or the tension of the bandage had closed them; for there was little bleeding, and I soon succeeded, with the aid of his cravat, in making a tolerable dressing of the wound, and by filling up the palm of the hand as I had once seen done by a country surgeon in a somewhat similar case. The pain was relieved by the gentle support afforded.

      “Why, you are a most accomplished vagrant!” said he, laughing, as he watched the artistic steps of my proceeding. “What’s your name? – I mean, what do you go by at present? for of course a fellow like you has a score of aliases.”

      “I have had only one name up to this,” said I, – “Con Cregan.”

      “Con Cregan! sharp and shrewd enough it sounds too!” said he. “And what line of life do you mean to follow, Master Con? for I suspect you have not been without some speculations on the subject.”

      “I have thought of various things, sir; but how is a poor boy like me to get a chance? I feel as if I could pick up a little of most trades; but I have no money, nor any friends.”

      “Money – friends!” exclaimed he, with a burst of bitterness quite unlike his previous careless humor. “Well, my good fellow, I had both one and the other, – more than most people are supposed to have of either; and what have they brought me to?” He held up his maimed and blood-clotted hand as he spoke this with a withering scorn in every accent.

      “No, my boy; trust one who knows something of life, – the lighter you start, the easier your journey! He that sets his heart on it, can always make money; and friends, as they are called by courtesy, are still more easily acquired.”

      This was the first time I had ever heard any one speak of the game of life as such; and I cannot say what intense pleasure the theme afforded me. I am certain I never stopped to consider whether his views were right or not, whether the shrewd results of