Our
adventurer, seeing him all alone, advanced with speed, and clapping
a pistol to his breast, commanded him to follow his footsteps.
without noise, on pain of immediate death.
Terrified at this sudden apparition, Hornbeck obeyed in silence;
and, in a few minutes, they arrived at the quay, where Pickle,
halting, gave him to understand that he was no stranger to his
villainous design; told him, that if he conceived himself injured
by any circumstance of his conduct, he would now give him an
opportunity of resenting the wrong in a manner becoming a man of
honour. "You have a sword about you," said he; "or, if you don't
choose to put the affair on that issue, here is a brace of pistols;
take which you please." Such an address could not fail to disconcert
a man of his character. After some hesitation, he, in a faltering
accent, denied that his design was to mutilate Mr. Pickle, but that
he thought himself entitled to the benefit of the law, by which he
would have obtained a divorce, if he could have procured evidence
of his wife's infidelity; and, with that view, he had employed people
to take advantage of the information he had received.
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