`` Pshaw ! '' said one villain . `` We can do nothing now . The dog 's master must be close behind . '' `` Let 's take a drink and be off , '' said the other . The man with the dagger thrust back the weapon into his bosom and drew forth a pocket-pistol , but not of that kind which kills by a single discharge . It was a flask of liquor with a block-tin tumbler screwed upon the mouth . Each drank a comfortable dram , and left the spot with so many jests and such laughter at their unaccomplished wickedness that they might be said to have gone on their way rejoicing . In a few hours they had forgotten the whole affair , nor once imagined that the recording angel had written down the crime of murder against their souls in letters as durable as eternity . As for David Swan , he still slept quietly , neither conscious of the shadow of death when it hung over him nor of the glow of renewed life when that shadow was withdrawn . He slept , but no longer so quietly as at first . An hour 's repose had snatched from his elastic frame the weariness with which many hours of toil had burdened it . Now he stirred , now moved his lips without a sound , now talked in an inward tone to the noonday spectres of his dream . But a noise of wheels came rattling louder and louder along the road , until it dashed through the dispersing mist of David 's slumber ; and there was the stagecoach . He started up with all his ideas about him . `` Halloo , driver ! Take a passenger ? '' shouted he . `` Room on top ! '' answered the driver .
Up mounted XXXXX , and bowled away merrily toward Boston without so much as a parting glance at that fountain of dreamlike vicissitude .
David Halloo dagger first hours jests left murder pocket-pistol spectres