Page:Paul Clifford Vol 3.djvu/40

32 turned on his heel, and remained humming an opera tune, with dignified indifference, until the pair had finished rifling the carriage, and seizing Mauleverer, proceeded to rifle him.

With a curled lip and a raised brow, that supreme personage suffered himself to be, as the taller robber expressed it, "cleaned out." His watch, his rings, his purse, and his snuff-box, all went. It was long since the rascals had captured such a booty.

They had scarcely finished when the postboys, who had now begun to look about them, uttered a simultaneous cry, and at some distance a waggon was seen heavily approaching. Mauleverer really wanted his money, to say nothing of his diamonds; and so soon as he perceived assistance at hand, a new hope darted within him. His sword still lay on the ground; he sprang towards it—seized it, uttered a shout for help, and threw himself fiercely on the highwayman who had disarmed him; but the robber, warding off the blade with his whip, retreated to his saddle, which he managed, despite of Mauleverer's lunges, to regain with impunity.

The other two had already mounted, and