"Dust and ashes--dust and ashes!" replied Harry Martin.
"You make a mistake," said Lieberg, calmly, "I have no intention of being anything of the kind. But listen to me for a moment, my good friend, and I will give you sufficient motives for making you change your mind in this business. Those papers are of great consequence to me; if they can't be found, the proofs of the facts to which they referred are the next important things to obtain. If you can furnish me with either the one or the other, you will benefit me and yourself too. Hear me!--you will save your own neck from the gallows--You will save your own life, I say."
"I would not, to save fifty lives," answered Harry Martin. "Come, don't talk to me any more about it, for I don't want to hear such stuff. You have no power to give life or to take it. You, who, if laws were equal, and punishments proportioned to crime, would find a far higher gallows than any of us poor fellows--you, who are a robber of more than money--a murderer of more than life--who gave you power to offer me safety, or anything like it?"
"The chance that placed me in the house which you broke into," replied Lieberg, "and the wit that made me lie quiet when I found there was no use in resisting. Upon my words hangs your life, and I pledge my honour to save it, if you but restore me those papers."
"Your honour!" exclaimed Harry Martin. "What's your honour worth? I have heard some tricks of your honour, that make it of as little value, to those who know what is underneath the surface, as a coiner's shilling."
"You are in the wrong," said Lieberg, calmly, keeping still fixed upon him that peculiar look which Harry Martin could not prevent himself from feeling, notwithstanding all his daring hardihood--"you are quite in the wrong, my good friend, and are risking your neck, or rather, I should say, absolutely condemning yourself to death for the sake of a youth who has betrayed you, and who was the first to bring upon you the eye of the law."
"Has he betrayed me?" demanded Harry Martin, with his eye flashing. "Has he betrayed me? If I thought that--"
"I can prove it," replied Lieberg. "You have mistaken your friends for your enemies, my good man. Listen to me for a very brief space of time, and you shall soon see that you have not only done me injustice, but yourself too. All the information that you possess, with regard to me and to my proceedings, has been derived from a youth whom you yourself know to be one of the most egregious liars in Europe, who has misrepresented my conduct to every one, even while I was acting for his own good. I should have supposed that you were too wise to trust to one word that he says, even from what you knew of him before; but surely you will not be foolish enough to give the slightest credit to the falsehoods which he has spoken of me, when you find that he is rascal enough to betray you without the least hesitation. Of the latter fact you may be quite sure, although he may very likely have bargained not to be brought forward at your trial. Take any means that you like to satisfy yourself, and you will find that almost immediately after the robbery had been committed, he went to the house of Mr. Carr, and has remained there ever since. You will find, also, that his sister has been brought down to give evidence against you; and every enquiry that you make will prove to you, more and more strongly, that it was he who pointed you out to the police as the man, even when suspicion had very naturally fallen upon two other persons."
Harry Martin walked up and down the narrow space of the cell, in a state of terrible agitation. "So, so!" he said, "this is the game! He shall smart for it!--I wish I had my hand upon his shoulder, that's all; but I will have my day, yet. Never mind--revenge will come, and it is sweet!"
"It is, indeed!" said Lieberg, with a tone of such earnestness, that no one could doubt he felt the burning passion, the hell-thirst of which he spoke, with strong intensity, notwithstanding the calm and indifferent demeanour which he so generally affected. "It is, indeed," he said, "and no man who knows how sweet it is, lets slip the opportunity when presented to him. The way before you, my good friend, is open, and easy; give me those papers; or, if you really have them not, furnish me with the proofs, which I know you possess, against the boy, William Barham, and you at once save your own life, and gain your revenge against him; for I tell you fairly, it is at him I strike."