He held out his hand, and Sweetland shook it as if he could never let go.
“The Lord will bless you for that! I knowed well how ’twould be when you understood. An’ I hope you’ll forgive me for speaking so plain; but ’twas gall to me to know you thought me so bad. If you’m on my side, an’ my own Minnie at home, an’ my own friend, Titus Sim—you three—then I’m not feared for anything else. I’ll face the world an’ laugh at it now. But first I must tell you the meaning of all that’s happened to-day.”
“Here’s the Pelican,” interrupted Vivian. “You’ll do well to come in and have a wash while I send for the police.”
“Washing won’t get it off. I’ll be so black as the ace of oaks for many a long day yet; an’ maybe it’s best so. ’Twas that dead man’s idea that I should bide along with Jesse Hagan an’ pretend to be a deaf an’ dumb nigger, an’ lend Jesse a hand when you arrived. A very good idea too. So long as Dan Sweetland’s thought to be a murderer, he’ll be better out of the way.”
They entered the dwelling of Jabez Ford, while a negro took their horses.
Then Sweetland told his story from the beginning. He started with the night before his wedding, and gave every particular of his last poaching enterprise. He related how he actually heard the shot that must have slain Adam Thorpe, and explained how he returned to Hangman’s Hut, put his gun into its case, and then went home to his father’s house. His wedding, arrest, and subsequent escape followed. He mentioned his ruse at the King’s Oven, his visit to his wife, and his escape from Plymouth in the Peabody. He resumed the narrative at Scarborough, Tobago, and then related what had happened to him after flying from the wharf.
“I overheard Jesse and Jabez Ford talking, an’ very quickly tumbled to it that you was a deader if you comed to see the Obi Man. I’d watched the old, grey-haired devil dig your grave already. Then I set to work to save you. Maybe ’twas a fool’s trick, but I hadn’t much time to think about it, so I bluffed, an’ went in so bold as brass, an’ said as I wanted to take your life. Well, you may guess what Ford thought of that. A desperate, half-naked, savage sailor-man was just the tool for him. They let me help Jesse, an’ I make no doubt that Ford meant to turn on me afterwards, if ever he had to clear himself. He never smelt a rat—he never saw I was playing a part—I was that bitter against you. I axed the man an’ begged him to let me kill you myself, an’ I think he would have agreed to it; but Jesse said that ’twas his job, an’ he told us he wasn’t going to have no pig-killing in his house, but ordered us to leave it to him. To the last he wouldn’t tell me how he was going to do it. So I had an anxious time, I promise you. Then ’twas planned that I should be a black man, an’ the old chap gived me some stuff for my face an’ hands an’ neck—just the colour as you see. I’ve got the rest up there in a bottle. Well, Ford he went off, an’ Jesse told me what my part was to be. Simple enough—only to hand you your rum punch when the time came—nothing more. ’Twas all in that drop of drink. But he swore ’twasn’t when I axed him afore you come. And what he put in, or how he put it in, I can’t tell you. I only guessed when he handed me the drink that death was in your bowl, because he was so partickler about which was yours an’ which was Ford’s. So I said to myself, ‘I’ll change these here calabashes behind their backs, an’ if one’s a wrong ’un, let that crafty chap have it; an’ if both be honest, no harm’s done.’ You see how right I was. When I seed Ford screech an’ topple over, I knowed what I’d saved you from.”
“But why—what did the man want to poison me for?”
“Because he’d seed through you an’ knowed you’d seen through him. Because he found out you wasn’t satisfied and meant to have him turned off. I heard him tell the Obi Man the whole yarn. He read the letters you’d written your father after you’d gone to bed; an’ then he took yours out an’ put in others into your envelopes, an’ forged your signatures to ’em. Then, when they’d got you settled, they was going to pretend you’d gone bathing an’ been eaten by sharks. The story all hung together very suent an’ vitty, I lay. But now he’s dust himself, an’, if you take my advice, you’ll do what he’s done afore you, an’ make Jesse Hagan keep his mouth shut. No harm can come of that; then you’re free to go home. Whereas, if you have the whole thing turned over to the police, there’ll be the devil to pay, an’ a case at Trinidad, an’ lawyers, an’ trouble, an’ Jesse Hagan hanged, an’ Lord knows what else.”