“This is a bad lookout, Jack,” he began in his downright way. “No chance, I suppose, old chap?”
“No; none.”
“You wouldn’t like, I suppose—er—to see a parson—er—or anyone in that line?”
“No—no. I’ve no use for any parson. The last sight of a man like Wagram’s a sight better than any parson. Has he told you about his adventures and the Red Derelict, eh?”
“Yes; and they sounded so jolly tall that, if anybody but Wagram had told me, I shouldn’t have believed half of them.”
“But they’re true, all the same. I could take you to the very place. And the white man who put him through all that lively time was no other than the chump he was looking for—his half-brother, Butcher Ned, as we used to call him—otherwise Everard Wagram.”
“Good Lord!”
“Fact. But I wasn’t going to tell him that, neither must you—d’you hear?—neither must you. Because if you do nothing’ll prevent him from starting right away to put himself in the power of that infernal cut-throat again—under the pretence of trying to reclaim him. Reclaim Butcher Ned!”
There was a world of expression in the dying adventurer’s weakening voice over these last words. He went on:
“Wagram would never have got out of that camp alive if he hadn’t got out when he did. Don’t you see, that’s why Ned wanted to make him bring his boy out there. Then he’d have done for the pair, and come and set up here at Hilversea. He would, sure as eggs. So never let on about it.”