“Was your uncle, you mean. He’s nobody’s uncle now; he’s dead.”
“Yes, so you said before. How did it come about? Why did you do it?”
“Oh, never mind that. I don’t know but I’ve told you too much now. There’s one thing, though. You’ll never get out of here to be a witness against me.”
“What!” exclaimed Leonard, in some alarm, “you don’t mean to say that——”
“I mean to say that you’ll stay here as long as my name is Snags, or until I get away from this infernal crew, and am in some quarter of the world where I can’t be found.”
“Then I am to be a prisoner, to shield you? Suppose I make a promise not to reveal anything that could harm you?”
“I don’t think you would keep such a promise. You wouldn’t let your cousin be hanged for my sake, would you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” replied Snags, “that I have a sort of an ideathat the thing will look bad against him. There’ll be blood stains on his clothes, which I put there when we were struggling—I had the bloody dagger, you know—and it isn’t likely that he could get home without somebody seeing him come from the direction of Colonel Conrad’s house. I may be wrong, but people like to fasten such crimes on somebody, you know, without being particular whether the evidence is positive or not. So, to shield your cousin, you’d be very likely to peach on me.”
Leonard bowed his head in dismay. Snags was clearly right.No promise could be made that would bring such a disaster on Carlos. He stood in silent reflection for a few moments, and then said: