“I didn’t know it; it was a chance guess.”
“Poor lads, they are lost. And good lads they were, too.”
“Were you actually going yonder to tell on them?”
He didn’t quite know how to take that; but he said, hesitatingly:
“Ye-s.”
“Then I think you are a damned scoundrel!”
It made him as glad as if I had called him an angel.
“Say the good words again, brother! for surely ye mean that ye would not betray me an I failed of my duty.”
“Duty? There is no duty in the matter, except the duty to keep still and let those men get away. They’ve done a righteous deed.”
He looked pleased; pleased, and touched with apprehension at the same time. He looked up and down the road to see that no one was coming, and then said in a cautious voice: