Then all at once I saw a shape, ghostly and undefined, flit swiftly
from the gloom of the boat-house, and next moment a convict was
standing beside the Imp, gaunt and tall and wild-looking in the
moonlight. His hideous clothes, stained with mud and the green
slime of his hiding-places, hung upon him in tatters, and his
eyes, deep-sunken in his pallid face, gleamed with an unnatural
brightness as he glanced swiftly about him - a miserable, hunted
creature, worn by fatigue, and pinched with want and suffering.
"Did ye get 'em, sonny?" he inquired, in a hoarse, rasping voice.
"Aye, aye, comrade," returned the Imp; "all's well!"
"Bless ye for that, sonny !" he exclaimed, and with the words he
fell to upon the food devouring each morsel as it was handed to
him with a frightful voracity, while his burning, restless eyes
glared about him, never still for a moment.
Now as I noticed his wasted form and shaking limbs, I knew that
I could master him with one hand. My weapon slipped from my
slackened grasp, but at the sound, slight though it was, he
turned and began to run.
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