"No."
"Then I won't—just now. I'll tell you what I did, Luttrell, and you may call me a cad for it, if you like: I refused to do anything towards bringing about this compromise, and, although I knew when you were to sail, I did not try to detain you! You should have heard the blowing-up I had afterwards from old Colquhoun for not dropping a word to him!"
"I am very glad you did not. He could not have hindered me."
"Yes, he could. Or I could. Some of us would have hindered you, you may depend on it. And, if I had said that word, don't you see, you would never have set foot in the Falcon nor I in the Arizona, and we should both have been safe at home, instead of disporting ourselves, like Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday, on a desert island."
"It's too late to think of that now," said Brian, rather sadly.
"Too late! that's the worst of it. You've the right to reproach me. Of course, I know I was to blame."
"No, I don't see that. I don't reproach you in the least. You knew so little, that it must have seemed unnecessary to make a fuss about what you had heard."
"I heard quite enough," said Percival, with a short laugh. "I knew what I ought to do—and I didn't do it. That's the long and the short of it. If I had spoken, you would not be here. That makes the sting of it to me now."
"Don't think of that. I don't mind. You made up for all by coming after me."
"I think," said Percival, emphatically, "that if a word could have killed you when I first knew who you were, you wouldn't have had much chance of life, Luttrell. I was worse than that afterwards. If ever I had the temptation to take a man's life——"