"So you've found out what I was about last night, eh, pardner? But you'll keep a still tongue. You're not one to peach on your comrade as was in hell or Newgate with you, and as crossed the ocean with you to this d—d Virginia, and as has always liked you, and has the same spite as you have against the man what bought us. You say naught, comrade, and you'll not stand to lose by it."
"I go from here to give you up to Colonel Verney," said Landless.
The wretch gave a snarl of rage and fear. Luiz Sebastian laid a soothing hand upon his shoulder.
"If I thought that," snarled the convict, "you'd never live to reach that door."
"I shall live to see you hanged," said the other coolly.
Here the mulatto slipped something into Roach's hand. "So you'll give me up?" said the latter in a peculiar voice.
"I have said so."
"Then, by the Lord! I'll be even with you!" Roach cried with savage triumph. "Do you see this, and this, and this?" fluttering a mass of folded papers before the other's eyes. "Ah! I was wise, I was, when I couldn't hide everything about me, to take the papers, and leave the weapons. I've got you now. Here's the lists that the old fool who is dead and gone to hell had hidden behind the gold! Here's enough to hang you and your d—d Cromwellians higher than Haman. There will be more than one giving up, I'm thinking! I've got you under my thumb, and I'll squeeze you!"
"You cannot read; you do not know what those papers contain," said Landless steadily.
"But I can," put in Trail smoothly. "I was but just running them over to our friend whose education has been so sadly neglected, when you came in."