“No. Now—at once,” she said, impatiently. “I can’t sleep till I know it all. Then I’ll never ask you to speak of it again.”
Elliott, thus cornered, told her somewhat baldly the story of how the missionary had been decoyed to the house on the slope of the mountain, and how he had met his death. He touched lightly on the torture, and said nothing of the treasure. The latter was too long a story.
“They stabbed him because he would not tell them something that they believed he knew. In reality he knew nothing of it. I think it was really by accident that he was wounded. I do not believe that they intended to do more than frighten him.”
“And you saw it all?”
“I was lying tied hand and foot on the floor. They drugged me afterward and put me on a ship for San Francisco.”
“What was it that they wanted him to tell them?”
“It was a business matter,” Elliott said, hastily. “Something that he knew nothing about, but they thought he did. I don’t quite understand the details of it myself.”
He had feared a terrible scene, but Margaret took the story courageously.
“What became of the—the murderers?” she asked, after a silence.
“I have no idea. Did you hear of any one being arrested?”