"
But no responsive tooting of the whistle echoed from the lips of Fred.
I looked toward him for an explanation of the silence, and beheld him
spitting out the fragments of the instrument, which had gone to pieces
in his mouth.
"What's all this?" he exclaimed, unrolling a little scroll of paper
that had been compressed within it, and holding it up to the light.
"See here, Joe, what do you make of this?"
"A draft for ten thousand pounds sterling, on the Bank of England, duly
signed and indorsed," I answered after scrutinizing it carefully.
We turned simultaneously for an explanation, but there was no one to
give it.
"I always suspected who _he_ was," said Mike, "but he's got no hold
on me,--no claim to a bond signed with _my_ blood. See, there he goes!"
I looked, and saw a boat shooting across the stream with a swiftness
that argued some optical delusion. That unmistakable figure stood in
the stern, urging it with a single scull, and as it disappeared in the
confusion of boats and the darkness, a superstitious suspicion crept
over me that he might be the person Mike suggested.
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