"‘It’s too late to give the money back now, even if you meant to do it—which I know you didn’t—an’ the best thing for you will be to turn it over to me.’
"‘Turn it over to you!’ I echoed, amazed at the proposition.
"‘Sartin. I’ll take care on it for you. That’s the only way you can get out of this trouble.’
"‘Well, I’ll see you in Guinea first,’ I replied. ‘I can take care of it myself.’
"‘No, you can’t, an’ you shan’t, nuther!’ exclaimed Luke Redman, with as much authority as though the money had been his own private property. ‘I’ve ketched you in a scrape that’ll send you to State’s prison fur the best years of your life, an’ if you want me to keep my mouth shet, you mustn’t put on no flourishes, ’cause I won’t stand it! I’ll take the money, an’ when things have quieted down a little, me an’ my family’ll emigrate. We’ll go to Texas, an’ stay thar. We’ll say nothing to nobody about this yer business, an’ no one need know that you had a hand in it. If you won’t agree to that, I’ll go straight to the settlement, an’ tell your uncle that he has got the wrong buck by the horn, an’ that you are the guilty chap, an’ not Jerry. What do you say to that, my lad?’
"I did not say any thing; for I was so utterly confounded that I could not speak. Luke Redman must have taken my silence for consent; for he lifted the valise out of my canoe, and, after stowing it away in the stern of his skiff, pulled off through the swamp, and I never made an effort to detain him. I must have sat there for hours, gazing fixedly at the spot where I had last seen his boat among the trees, hoping and half believing that the events of the afternoon were a terrible dream, from which I would awake to find myself as I was before—an honest boy, if not a good one.
"It was only by a strong effort that I aroused myself. I returned by a circuitous route to the place where I had left my horse, and throwing myself into the saddle, rode about until nearly midnight, starting at every sound, and almost certain that every tree I passed concealed some one who would spring out and arrest me.
“When I first discovered you and your friends coming down the road, on your way to the village to visit Jerry, I nearly fell off my horse with fright. I knew it looked suspicious for me to sneak off into the bushes, but I could not help it—I could not face you.”
“You showed your guilt as plainly as daylight,” I observed. “There was not one among our fellows who was not willing to declare that you knew more about that money than any one else.”
“I can not begin to tell you what a miserable night I passed,” continued Tom. "My uncle repeatedly declared in my hearing that he knew Jerry to be the guilty one, but that did not allay my fears in the least. The real facts of the case might leak out somewhere before morning—there were a thousand ways in which they might become known—and then what would he think of me? Above all, what would he do?