“Well, he’ll soon know you ain’t.”
“Not too soon, if I can contrive it! Chirk, you found the gold, and the reward will be yours, but will you trust me to manage the business as will be best for all of us?”
“Ay, but it wasn’t me found the dibs!” Chirk pointed out. “It was you brought me here! I may be a bridle-cull, but I’m danged if I’m a cove as diddles my friends!”
“I may have brought you here, but did I find these chests? All I found was a gallery! I don’t want the reward, so let us have no more talk of that! What I want is to keep Miss Nell and the Squire out of this business—and Henry Stornaway, too, for their sakes, though it goes against the grain! I don’t know how I may do that, but some way there must be! Sir Peter must not know what you and I have discovered, and I’d give all I possess to keep it from Miss Nell too! How much Stogumber knows already I can’t guess: something he must know, for why else should he have come to this district? But not much, surely! If he had proof to bring against Coate or Henry, he would have arrested them; if he knew where this gold was hid we shouldn’t have found it here today!”
“What are you wishful to do?” Chirk asked.
“Keep Henry Stornaway’s name out of it, if I can. If I can’t, get him out of the country before Stogumber knows the whole!”
“And Coate?”
The Captain’s jaw hardened. “No. I’m damned if I will! No, by God! There are two dead men at least to be laid to his account, for I’ll swear it was he who shot those guards! He and that man of his, maybe. That’s another thing, Jerry! We could reveal these chests to Stogumber, but he wants more than the gold: he wants the men who stole it. What proof is there that Coate was the arch-thief?”
“Well,” said Chirk, stroking his chin reflectively, “it would look uncommon like he must have done the business—him being at Kellands, wouldn’t it?”
“It might look smoky, but unless Stogumber has proof, which I’ll swear he has not, it’s not enough to warrant an arrest. Lord, I don’t know what I am going to do, but give me a little time before you go to Stogumber!”