“Are you prepared to go to the bottom, Jasper?” demanded Halstead.
“Am I fit to die, do you mean?” asked the man, with a strange, sickly grin. “No, sir; I’m not. At least, not until I’ve cleared myself by telling a few truths.”
“Come out into the cabin, man,” ordered Halstead, leading him. “Now, sit down, and I’ll get your handcuffs off.”
The young captain of the “Restless” unlocked 214 the irons about the fellow’s wrists. Jasper stretched his hands, flexing his wrists.
“Now, I can swim, anyway, though I don’t believe it will do much good,” he declared.
“No; it won’t do much good,” Halstead assented. “We’re something more than forty miles off the coast. But what do you want to say? What’s on your mind? Be quick, man, for we must be on deck again in a jiffy. I don’t want to lose my boat while I’m below with a rascal like you.”
“I haven’t always been a rascal,” retorted Jasper, hanging his head. “At least, I have been fairly straight, until the other day.”
“What have you been doing for Dalton and Lemly?” demanded Tom Halstead, fixing his gaze sternly on the frightened fellow.
“Never anything for Dalton,” whined Jasper.
“Well, for Lemly, then?”