"I should like to know in what manner you detected this cleverly contrived plot."
"Very simply, Captain, and I will tell you the whole affair in a couple of words. Bowline and I, without the Major suspecting it, followed him carefully into the ruins, while cautiously avoiding being seen; in this way no part of his conversation with the stranger escaped us. When the Major handed him the papers, and the stranger retired, I jumped at his throat, and, with Bowline's help, took the papers from him—"
"Where are these papers?" the Count interrupted him eagerly.
"I will give them to you, Captain."
"Thanks, Michael; now go on."
"Well, my story's finished; I gagged him to prevent him calling out, and after tying him up like a plug of tobacco to stop him running after us, I left him there and went away."
"What, you went away, Michael, leaving the man thus gagged and bound on a desert isle?"
"What would you have had me do with him, Captain?"
"Oh, perhaps it would have been better to kill him, than leave him exposed to such a horrible punishment."
"He had been so precious tender to you, hadn't he, Captain? Stuff! Pity for such a ferocious brute would be madness on your part; besides, the fiend always protects his creatures, you may be sure, and I am certain that he has escaped."