“I couldn’t take this money away secretly by boat—it’s too bulky. I couldn’t take it openly without sharing it with a dozen others—and it would need about a dozen to cut a way through this damnable weed. I’ve been ready to go for six months, but I didn’t see my way. Now I do.”
“Well.”
“Recently I found a safe, quick, and easy way for a man with the right technical knowledge to get away from here with two or three people—and my money. But I didn’t have the technical knowledge. Of all the ships that have floated in with libraries on them, not one has had a book that told me what to do. Now you have come especially trained in the very line I want. Can you guess what my terms are now?”
“Humph! Perhaps. What is your way?”
“Don’t worry about that now. It’s all right, and that’s enough. I’m telling you a good deal, because I want your help, but I’m not giving myself away altogether. But about those terms. If you’ll help me get ashore with my money, I’ll give you a hundred thousand dollars.”
Howard lay back in his chair and stared at his host thoughtfully. The conversation had proceeded far otherwise from what he had expected. The man whose opposition to his leaving he had feared, was actually asking his aid. Yet this assistance was asked not slavishly, but as if the asker could compel it if he liked, but preferred to request. Howard felt that he must choose his words warily.
“Such a question is hardly worth asking, captain,” he returned. “Of course, I shall be glad to accept. I take it for granted that my friends are included in your invitation!”
“Your friends!” Forbes burst into a roar of laughter. “Your friends! That’s good! That’s very good! One of your friends—Mr. Jackson—I intend to leave behind as a special favor to you.”
For an instant Howard saw red. Then the fit passed, and he answered quietly, “You astonish me, captain.”
“Oh, no, I don’t! Look here, I’m on to you, Howard. You are the convict that Jackson went to Porto Rico for. You are now supposed to be dead. Leave Jackson here, and you can change your name and live anywhere in the world you like in perfect safety.”