Page:The Gully of Bluemansdyke.djvu/81

 Rh rose in excitement. "If a man of ye moves down he goes! The door's locked on the outside, so ye can't get out anyhow. Your seats, ye canting, chuckle-headed fools!  Down with ye, ye dogs, or I'll fire among ye!"

Astonishment and fear brought us back into our seats, and we sat staring blankly at our pastor and each other. Elias B. Hopkins, whose whole face and even figure appeared to have undergone an extraordinary alteration, looked fiercely down on us from his commanding position, with a contemptuous smile on his stern face.

"I have your lives in my hands," he remarked; and we noticed as he spoke that he held a heavy revolver in his hand, and that the butt of another one protruded from his sash. "I am armed and you are not. If one of you moves or speaks he is a dead man.  If not, I shall not harm you.  You must wait here for an hour.  Why, you fools" (this with a hiss of contempt which rang in our ears for many a long day), "do you know who it is that has stuck you up?  Do you know who it is that has been playing it upon you for months as a parson and a saint?  Conky Jim, the bushranger, ye apes!  And Phillips and Maule were